


42 Marauder Avenue

by cloudcastles



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Disabled Character, Everyone Is Here For Some Reason??, F/M, Female Character of Color, Gen, M/M, Male Character of Color, Masturbation, Multiple Sclerosis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-05 18:06:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1827406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudcastles/pseuds/cloudcastles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus Lupin is a postgraduate art history student with a serious coffee addiction and a serious lack of boyfriend. When a gorgeous motorcyclist moves in next door, it looks like one of those facts might be subject to change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flat C: 9:51 am

_BEEP. BEEP. BEEP._

_BEEP. BEEP. BEEP._

Remus groaned and fumbled for his cell phone under his pillow. He squinted through the stream of sunlight that was hitting him right in the eyes, trying to decipher how to turn his alarm off. But there was no alarm message on his phone, just a little Facebook notification in the corner of the screen. Mumbling to himself, he threw his sheets off and sat up, intending to go find the source of the incessant beeping.

After blearily looking around himself for a few seconds, Remus realised that the sound wasn’t coming from an attention-starved appliance or laptop, but was actually coming from outside his bedroom window. He stumbled out of bed, trying not to knock over one of his many piles of books as he did so, and peered through the curtains. There was a truck backing into the driveway, beeping loudly to bring attention the information that it was in fact moving backwards. Why the entire complex needed to know the truck was moving backwards, Remus had no idea. He squinted into the bright morning light in an attempt to understand the truck.

Along the side of the truck were the words “Pickford and Sons Moving Company”, accompanied by a smiling cartoon house. Remus could see the silhouette of someone at the rear of the truck, who was most likely giving instructions to the driver. The silhouette held out their hands and the truck rumbled to a halt, causing the beeping to stop.

“Thank fuck”, mumbled Remus. It was far too early on a Saturday morning to be moving house. Or at least far too early to be making so much noise about it. He grabbed a t-shirt off his floor, pulling over his head before he shuffled out of his room to the kitchen in search of coffee.

Remus flicked the switch on the kettle and turned to stare through the large living room window at the people moving in next door. He was startled by the sound of a cough behind him, and turned to see Frank searching through the massive selection of teabags in the cupboard.

“Got enough water for Alice and me in there?” Frank asked, jabbing his thumb towards the kettle, his attention caught by the boxes of tea.

“Yeah”, Remus replied. “Did you hear that beeping before?”

Frank turned around and shrugged. “What beeping?”

“The truck! How’d you miss it?” Remus said, staring at Frank in bewilderment, “we’ve got ourselves some new neighbours.”

Frank followed the line of Remus pointing, and examined the moving truck for a moment. “Huh. Hey, do you think Alice wants Vanilla Chai Tea or Green Tea with Jasmine?” He held up the two boxes for Remus to consider.

“Green.”, Remus replied without looking over at the boxes of tea. He was still engrossed in looking over at the neighbours, who had begun carrying mattresses into the flat. His attention was broken by the click of the kettle boiling, however.

He reached around Frank for his coffee grounds, then poured the water into the respective cups and coffee plunger.

“What do you think they’ll be like?” Remus asked Frank, jerking his head over at the neighbouring flat.

Frank ran his hand through his hair and beard, somehow to managing to muss them up even more. “Hmmm. Hopefully not creepy serial killers I guess.”

Remus barked a laugh in response, and Frank grinned. “Nah. It’d be nice to have some people our age. Seems everyone else here is over 60.”

“Well that’s what happens when the advertisement for a flat says ‘Apartment Complex featuring resident bridge club and community rose garden’”, Remus replied.

“And doesn’t Phyllis have such nice Persian roses this month?” Frank said with another grin, nodding towards the yellow roses lined against the fence across the garden. Chuckling, he picked up the two mugs of tea and headed back to his room.

As he waited for his coffee to brew, Remus pondered about the new next door neighbours. From what he could tell, they were moving themselves in, so they couldn’t be too elderly. He also noticed an overflowing box of pots that included a wok and a large steel steamer. Perhaps they were Asian? Or maybe they just enjoyed Asian food. It was still difficult to see any detail of their faces due to the awkward mid-morning light, so Remus resigned himself to remain in the dark until the inevitable jovial new neighbour welcome later that day. He busied himself making his coffee, ensuring that he added just the right amount of milk, before heading back to his room.

When he got back to his room, he found Picasso sitting on his armchair where he had been planning to sit to drink his coffee and check Facebook. Picasso meowed indignantly, and Remus sighed and put his coffee down on the bedside table.

“What?”, he said in that voice one reserves for pouty babies, sleepy dogs and angry cats, “Do you want breakfast? Did I leave it 5 minutes too long?”

Picasso meowed again, then jumped off the chair to rub against Remus’ legs and headbutt his ankles. He reached over to check his phone, and it was in fact 5 minutes past 10am.

“Mr. Picky”, Remus huffed at Picasso, before making coaxing noises as he headed back to the kitchen. Picasso trotted after Remus, maintaining his snooty attitude.

He grabbed the cat biscuits off the shelf and shook some into Picasso’s bowl. “There. Happy now?” he said huffily.

Picasso meowed snappily in response, then started nibbling at the biscuits. Remus rolled his eyes and headed back to his room again.

He sipped at his coffee whilst he browsed through his Facebook wall, his laptop perched on his knees. Adrian had tagged him in a few photos from his party last week for landing his position at The Guardian. Remus flicked through the photos, ‘liking’ the ones where he looked slightly less gormless. At least he’d chosen to forgo wearing that tweed jacket his parents had bought him. He looked alright as long as he avoided anything his they gave him. Why they thought he liked cardigans and tweed that much, he couldn’t understand. When they gave him the jacket, his mother had said, “For our future university lecturer!” Remus wasn’t sure tweed was actually part of university staff dress code, but it was the thought that counted.

Once he’d downed the last of his coffee, Remus closed the lid of his laptop, leaving the Facebook window open for later. He grabbed his towel hanging on the back of his door, quickly slipping his pyjama pants and t-shirt off. He haphazardly wrapped his towel around his waist, and ambled down the hallway to the bathroom.

He flicked the shower handle upwards, and waited for the water to heat up. Whilst he did so, Remus stared at himself in the bathroom mirror before it fogged over. Stubble? Not too bad, considering he shaved it last night. Hair? Needs to be washed? Chest hair? Still there. Looking more Middle Earth-esque every day. Teeth? Brushing required. He grabbed his toothbrush, coated it in toothpaste, then jumped into the shower. When he told Frank he brushed his teeth in the shower, Frank had been confused. He’d said that it would be weird smelling all minty from having to spit down the drain. But Remus liked the mint, he even used a mint body wash. The tingling was nicer than the numbness in his fingers, which was worse in the mornings. Plus, a little multitasking never hurt anyone.

As he brushed his teeth, he found himself rotating slowly to let the water cascade all over him. Morning showers were his favourite part of getting up. His coffee and indignant cat were just part of his routine, but showers were always just a bit more special. With his mint shower gel, the strange loofah thing left at his flat by his Body Shop employee ex-boyfriend, and the fancy face scrub given to him by his concerned grandmother, it was almost semi-luxurious. As luxurious as a 22 year old male student’s shower could be, that is.

After he leant out of the shower to put his toothbrush back in its holder above the basin, Remus moved on to washing his hair and body. Ever since watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off when he was 13, he’d been unable to stop himself forming his hair into a soapy mohawk. He did the same thing today, moulding it into 2 spikes and snickering at himself in the obscured bathroom mirror reflection. He tried to replicate the look with the minty suds and chest hair, but couldn’t quite manage it. He rinsed the suds out, then quickly scrubbed his face.

Remus let himself stand for a few more moments under the hot water, then forced himself to flip the handle back and step out of the shower into the drafty bathroom. There was a faint knock on the door.

“Yeah?  Be two secs!”

A muffled Welsh accent came through the door, “It’s okay, Remus. Just got to start getting ready for work.”

 _Of course. Alice stayed over, she starts at the hospital at 12_ , Remus thought. He quickly grabbed his towel and wrapped it around himself, then flung himself out of the bathroom.

“All yours”, he said with a smile. Alice smiled back, hugging an unbuttoned shirt of Frank’s to herself.

“Thanks. Nippy this morning!”, she remarked, shuffling past Remus.

He nodded in response, and watched the door close behind her. It wasn’t that cold, but Alice was a very small girl. He suspected that half the reason she’d started dating Frank was due to his large collection of fuzzy sweaters that she could steal.

Remus headed back to his room, trying not to drip too much on the hallway carpet. He dried himself off speedily once reaching his room, sifting through his underwear drawer to find a pair in which the elastic hadn’t given out. After he pulled a particularly obnoxious bright green pair on, he picked out his favourite jeans, which were blue and faded with small rips on the knees. He took a bit longer searching for a t-shirt, towelling off his hair as he did so. He finally decided on his new cream coloured t-shirt that had arrived in the mail yesterday. It featured a picture of a pipe and the words “Bitch I might be” underneath it. Frank hadn’t understood it when he’d showed it to him yesterday, but he knew that somebody in the art history postgraduate department would. They were all big fans of Magritte and other kinds of artists that disrupted realism and convention.

Still towelling off his hair, he opened his bedroom curtains, revealing a view of the driveway and the entrance of the neighbouring flat. One of the new neighbours was still carrying boxes and furniture into the flat, but the other had seemingly disappeared. Just as Remus was about to turn away to hang his towel up, he heard the rumble of a motorbike coming up the driveway.  

He stood and stared with his towel still half on his head as the motorbike parked outside the new flat. The rider dismounted, and handed a box that had been strapped to the back to the other neighbour. The flatmate took the box inside as the rider took off their helmet and locked it up with their bike.  They wandered over to the end of the truck, assumedly to grab another box. Just as they strode off the lawn and onto the gravelled driveway, the sunlight streamed across their face _. It was like a moment from a bloody teen movie_ , Remus would think to himself later.

His hair was gorgeous. It curled haphazardly across his forehead and down to his chin, catching the light that highlighted the rich, deep brown colour. Remus stood in awe, his towel hanging off his head. He drank in the man’s beautiful hair and his full lips, letting his eyes wander down his brown leather jacket, impossibly tight jeans and Doc Martens.

 _God, he’s a fucking beautiful biker boy,_ Remus practically moaned in his head, _what did I do to deserve this?_

Remus’ staring daze was broken by the man meeting his gaze. Remus was suddenly painfully aware that only was he staring at his new neighbour, he was doing so with a wet towel dangling off his head. He scrambled to take it off, dropping it on the floor. His hands went to his head in an attempt to smooth his hair down.

The man smiled softly and waved. He looked like he was chuckling to himself. Remus felt his cheeks go red as he waved back weakly. The man bounced his eyebrows cheekily at Remus before clambering into the truck to grab another box.

Remus forced himself to avert his gaze for a moment and hang his towel up. When he let himself look back up, he only caught a glimpse of the man going in through his front door. Remus’ mind wandered back to the man’s beautiful hair and smile, and he found himself wondering what his eyes were like behind those sunglasses.

He let himself become lost in thought for a few moments before shaking himself to attention.

“There are things to do. Art history things”, Remus muttered to himself in an authoritative tone. He grabbed a thick textbook of the top of the nearest book pile and balanced his laptop, mug and a few highlighters on top of it.

Remus carefully carried his pile of stuff into the lounge, and set himself up beside the coffee table. He surveyed the choice of armchairs and couches, trying to decide which would best provide him with both warm sunlight and ample view of the gorgeous biker boy. Finally, he decided upon the squishy orange 70s chair which he’d inherited from his parent’s basement last year. He flicked on the kettle again to make himself another cup of coffee, and settled in for a few hours of university readings, cups of tea, and peering not-so-subtly over at the new neighbours.


	2. Flat D: 1:34 pm

James stood silently in Sirius’ bedroom doorway, watching him stretch to press down the corner of his poster. Sirius was already standing on his mattress, but also had his arm extended to its limits as he tried to get the poster as high on the wall as possible.

“I thought we were a bit old for posters now, Padfoot”, James remarked.

The sudden noise made Sirius turn in surprise. He then grinned, and stood back to admire his work. “I’ve got a reputation to upkeep, Prongs. No angry rebellious punk is complete without his ratty posters.”

James crooked one eyebrow, staring at the poster. “I’m not sure Arctic Monkeys is that punk.”

Sirius gasped in mock offense. “I’ll have you know that this is very punk”, he replied pointing at the poster, “this is from the 2011 tour. Suck It and See? Über punk”.

“Whatever you say mate. Aren’t all the songs about girls and love and stuff?”

“Love is the most punk thing”, Sirius replied. He picked up another poster and began blu-tacking the back.

“Apart from you that is”, James said with a laugh.

“Damn right”, Sirius said as he tried to get the second poster straight. It featured two young boys lounging by a pool, with the title ‘The Way He Looks’ emblazoned across it. Sirius finished placing it above his chest of drawers, then stood back to check it looked ok.

He turned to speak to James again, but found that he’d disappeared. Sirius wandered down the hallway to James’ bedroom.

“Besides, you can’t say that you don’t have any Liverpool posters packed away in there.” He pointed to the mountain of boxes sitting on James’ bed.

With a flourish, James pulled a large red poster from one of the boxes, unfurling it to reveal a man kicking a soccer ball. It also featured a scribbled signature in the corner.

Before Sirius could cheer in triumph, James said, “But this isn’t just a poster. This is football. This is memorabilia. This is Gerrard. This is signed.” He tapped the corner of the poster.

Sirius merely smirked as James kept talking, “There’s no-one like Gerrard. He’s more than an athlete. He’s an artist.”

“I think you’re in love, Prongs”, Sirius said. He dodged the ball that was promptly thrown at his head and laughed. He checked his watch and frowned.

“Mate it’s nearly quarter to 2. You wanna have lunch?”, he asked James.

James, still engrossed in putting his Gerrard poster up, replied absentmindedly, “Yeah … But we haven’t unpacked the kitchen yet.”

“True. But your mum gave us some pork buns, they were tied to my bike this morning. We can plug in the microwave, heat them up and have pork buns and maybe some biscuits if we can find them?”

James considered for a moment, then nodded. “You do the microwave, I’ll find the cha siu bao.”

 

…

1:57 pm

 

A few minutes later, the two men found themselves sitting on the floor of their new flat, eating Mrs. Potter’s cha siu bao and a packet of Jammie Dodgers that they’d found perched on top of one of the kitchen boxes.

“We should really get ourselves a couch”, James said between mouthfuls of barbeque pork and steamed bun, “We have a TV, we have a TV license, but we don’t have couches to watch it on.”

Sirius nodded in agreement. “We passed a Salvation Army store about a block back. We could go there after we’re finished? I think we have the moving truck till the end of the day.”

“Yeah, it has to be at the depot by 5”, James replied.

They nodded in unison, then finished their lunch in comfortable silence. James threw Sirius the truck keys when he stood up, and Sirius caught them mid-air.

“You don’t wanna drive?”, Sirius asked.

James shook his head, and said, “You need all the practise you can get. Otherwise you’ll get used to driving Black Dog and won’t be able to get behind a car wheel.”

“Black Dog is my baby! My one true love! Don’t need a car when I’ve got her”, Sirius said as he closed and locked the front door behind them. He blew a kiss to his parked bike before they both hopped into the truck.

“Besides, you don’t even have a car. So you’re the one that needs the practise”, Sirius continued as he drove the moving truck down the driveway.

“I do have a car! Mum’s using it for work, remember? She’s dropping it off tomorrow. Probably after lots of complaining that she needs to go get a new one”, James said.

Sirius grinned and imitated James’ mother, bopping his head and crouching over the wheel, “Nǐ bìng bù xūyào de jū! I need car! I have to run the restaurant, shǎ de érzi!”

This caused James to erupt into a fit of laughter. Between wiping away his tears, he wheezed, “Your Cantonese is getting better. She doesn’t call me shǎ de érzi, though does she?”

“Only when you’re not there”, Sirius admitted with a wink.

“So you’re the favourite ‘son’ then?”, James asked, offended.

 “Of course! She called me hǎo háizi when she said goodbye yesterday, you know.” Sirius peered over the dashboard, looking for a space to park at the Salvation Army store.

James pointed towards a spare space a few metres away. “I’m personally offended. My own mother. My own blood. Betrayal, that’s what it is.”

Sirius snorted to himself as he hopped out of the truck and locked it behind them. They headed towards the store, peering through the windows at the furniture.

Once they entered the store, Sirius flipped his sunglasses up to sit on his head and looked around the store. “So what do we want? Armchairs? Couches? Beanbags?”

“The 7 year old in me says beanbags. The footballer in me says we need a couch for watching parties”, James replied.

Sirius groaned. “Football? Really?”

“Football always”, James said with an intense look on his face. He pointed excitedly to a set of green couches with a floral print all over them. “How about those?”

“I think enough people think we’re a couple without owning couches covered in flowers”, Sirius said upon inspecting the couches.

James strummed his bottom lip as they wandered about the store, looking at all the couches. “Do we want a fold out?”

Sirius shook his head, frowning. Then, his face lit up and he grabbed James by the shoulder. James looked at him in bewilderment.

“What?”, James asked in confusion. He followed Sirius’ arm, which was pointing across the store towards a red and white couch.

He mirrored Sirius’ grin and whispered in a reverent tone, “Liverpool colours.”

“Liverpool colours”, Sirius repeated sincerely.

James practically ran across the store in his excitement, skidding next to the two couches and sitting down. Sirius followed, and stood over James.

“Is that a yes then?”

James examined the price sticker on the seat next to him and made a thumbs up. “Thunderbirds are go!”, he said excitedly, leaping up and heading over to the register to organise the purchase.

“Fucking dork”, Sirius muttered, fishing for his wallet in his jeans pocket.

…

2:52 pm

 

After they’d been through the whole business for paying for the couches, lugging them on to the truck, driving them home, and walking them up to the front door, the two men discovered a small flaw in their plan. The couches didn’t fit through the door.

“Fuck!”, James yelled in frustration, trying to measure with his hands the best way to rotate the couches to fit them through. Sirius stood back, his brow furrowed in thought. He leant around the corner of the building to try and get a look at the lounge room windows.

“Wait a sec Prongs. Not all is lost.”

James looked up from his puddle of despair in front of the door and squinted through his glasses at Sirius, his eyes filled with hope. “What?”

Sirius jerked his head around the corner, “We have a sliding door.”

Raising his hands as if he was experiencing a moment of blissful praise at church, James stood and looked around the corner.

“Right you are, Padfoot”, he said, before picking up his end of the first couch eagerly.

They fit both couches through the sliding door to the lounge with ease, putting them down haphazardly around the boxes of kitchen stuff.

James motioned to a pile of boxes. “Should we maybe unpack some of this?”

Sirius pulled a face. “I guess. Then … we should think about cooking or something?”

“How adult a suggestion of you,” James said, “but sadly, we have no food except Jammie Dodgers.”

Sirius looked as if he was considering having shortbread and jam biscuits for tea for a moment, before admitting defeat. “We could always get takeaways? Ask one of the neighbours what place is best?”

“Aren’t all the neighbours like 70 years old?”, James said with a frown.

“Not all,” Sirius said with a smile curling the edges of his mouth, “the ones across the lawn look about our age. Or at least one of them is.”

James quirked his eyebrow up. “Oh? Been having a little perusal of the local talent already?”

“More like he’s been perusing me”, Sirius said, before catching himself mid-insinuation and chuckling. “He’s been staring over at us all morning. I saw when I was setting up the TV before. He’s got a sort of librarian vibe going on - had a bunch of books, sucking on a biro and stuff.”

This roused a laugh from James, who muttered the words “sucking a biro” under his breath to himself as he shook his head. “Alright, shall we go ask this cute biro book boy about food then? Invite him over for a drink?” He nudged Sirius playfully.

“Sure. In a bit though. It’s only about half three”, Sirius said glancing at his cellphone.

“’Kay. We unpack this shit, then go find out about some food and booze? The game’s on at 7, we could invite him over to watch?”

Sirius didn’t even bother asking what game was on. Football was on, that was all James cared about. He nodded in reply, then grabbed a box labelled ‘cooking shit’ and carried it through to the kitchen.

…

5:32 pm

“You sure you want to eat this early?”, James asked.

Sirius nodded innocently. “Yeah, man. I’m starved from all that … couch moving.”

James narrowed his eyes and pinched his lips together in suspicion. “Riiiight. Well you lead the way then.”

Both men stepped out of the front door, and Sirius turned to lock it behind them. “Christ, how is it cold already? It’s late bloody August, not freaking November!”, he said, rubbing his hands together.

“No idea mate”, James replied as he began walking over to the neighbouring flat, “It was flat C right?”

“Yep”, Sirius said as they came to a halt in front of the door. He almost subconsciously took a deep breath before pressing the doorbell.

He rocked back on his heels and bit his lip as they waited for someone to answer the door. James bit his cheek to stop himself from smirking at Sirius’ jitteriness.  Although the man tried to keep up his devil-may-care punk rock attitude, to James he was still the dorky rower who got top marks in English at high school.

Sirius brought himself to a standstill as the door creaked open. A thin young man with a dishevelled beard and deep blue cardigan opened the door. He looked at them in confusion. “Hello?”

“Hi,” said James, “We’ve just moved in next door. I’m James, this is Sirius.” He held out his hand.

The man’s eyes widened in understanding. “Oh, yes! Hello, yes, I’m Frank”, he reached and shook James and Sirius’ hands, then turned around and called into the flat, “Oi! Remus, it’s the neighbours!”

He turned back to the other two then blinked forcibly and tapped his forehead. “Sorry, come in, it’s a bit nippy out. Always forgetting those manners mum taught me.”

James smiled sympathetically, thinking of his own mother’s tendency for being a tad bossy. James and Sirius stepped over the threshold then followed Frank through to the living room.

The flat looked almost exactly like their own, except mirrored. It had a larger collection of couches than theirs did however, and notably less boxes. Frank turned to speak, and started to say “Would you like a cu-“ before he was interrupted by another man entering the room.

Sirius let out the breath he had been holding in amazement. He hadn’t really gotten a good look at the man from across the lawn. He was stunning. Quite literally, almost. Sirius was utterly unable to concentrate for a few moments as he openly stared at the man. He was tall, towering over Sirius and everyone else in the room. However, he didn’t stand up entirely straight, leaning over comfortably with his hand held awkwardly in front of himself. His hair was still a bit of a mess from that morning, blonde flyaway hairs drifting across his forehead. But most of all, Sirius noticed his eyes. God, they were a deep green colour, almost like a forest. Sirius caught himself getting lost in them when he heard his name being said next to him. The man turned to him with a smile and held out his hand.

“Sorry?” said Sirius, shaking the man’s hand.

“I’m Remus. And you’re Sirius?” he asked, his smile turning nearly mocking.

Sirius nodded dumbly. “Yeah, uh, that’s me.”

James looked at his flatmate with concern before continuing to talk to the other two men. “Anyway, we thought we’d come introduce ourselves. And also ask where the hell anyone gets some good takeaways round here.”

“Ah, well that’s really Frank’s forte”, Remus said with a smirk.

Frank held up his index finger, and went to the kitchen. The others heard some rummaging in a drawer before Frank returned a few moments later, his hands filled with takeaway menus.

“Now, round here there’s a whole lot of curry places. There’s a little Korean place a block over, and a Dominos about 5 minutes away too. But if you want to you can borrow these, feel free. My girlfriend likes to hoard them.” He held out the menus to James, who held up his hands in polite protest.

“No, no need. What’s the best curry place?”

The other two men looked at each other as if holding a telepathic conversation about lamb korma. Remus spoke next.

“Definitely _Punjabi Eatery_ down the road,” he said authoritatively, “make sure you get the peshwari naan though. When you eat it you might have an out of body experience from how good it is.”

Sirius giggled, then said, “Will do. Oh, and James and I were also wondering if you wanted to come watch the game later.” He looked to James, subtly suggesting he talk about it.

“Yeah, it’s just a Man United versus Swansea game, but I’m keen to break in the new TV licence,” James explained.

Frank nodded eagerly. “Sounds great! I usually just watch by myself, Remus isn’t a big sports watcher.” Frank and James turned to Remus and shook their heads in unison.

Sirius leant in to Remus and said, “Me neither, mate. What do you say we let them watch it and we sit back and make stupid comments and drink beer?”

The other man smiled at Sirius and nodded. “Sure. Sounds good. Um, what time?”

“Game starts at 7, so round about then would be good”, James said to both Frank and Remus.

“Cool,” Frank replied eagerly, ‘Well, we’ll see you about 7 then. Have a good peshwari naan I guess?”

“Yep”, James said, giving a little wave as they both stepped out the front door.

The door shut behind them and James swivelled around to face Sirius. “So … curry?”

Sirius jerked his chin up in response, and they both dug their hands into their coat pockets as they headed down the driveway.

“So it wasn’t just me was it?”, James asked.

“Huh?”

“That Remus is pretty good looking,” he said. “You know, for a guy”, he added as an afterthought.

“No, it wasn’t just you.” Sirius said with a smile.

James beamed back at Sirius and gripped him around the shoulder tightly. “Awww. New flat, new city, new job, new life. And a new hot boy next door. Everything’s coming up Sirius!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used Google translate Chinese for the Cantonese, so I'm sure it's been butchered. Also, please forgive me if I get football details wrong. Again, any comments/suggestions welcome. Hope you liked it!
> 
> Cantonese:
> 
> Nǐ bìng bù xūyào de jū - You don’t need the car
> 
> Shǎ de érzi - Silly son
> 
> Hǎo háizi - Good boy


	3. Flat C: 6:54 pm

The clothes and books on Remus’ floor were hectically piled in jumbles and stacks around his bed. Usually, they held some sort of order that Remus was able to decipher, but tonight he was unable to find anything. He threw a pile of books on Paul Cézanne onto his bed in an attempt to uncover his sweatshirt. It was his favourite, and he was convinced that the dark blue shade brought out his eyes. At least, that’s what his ex-boyfriend Edgar had said last year.

Just as he was about to give up, a glimpse of blue fabric caught his eye. Remus reached under his bed and pulled, dragging out a navy zipper hoodie that had the University of Birmingham logo and motto on it. He grinned to himself, shook the sweatshirt off and pulled it on.

Remus then turned to his bedroom mirror and examined his reflection. He adjusted the hoodie zipper so that the picture of the pipe on his t-shirt was still visible. He then busied himself trying to get his hair to stay put. It’s not as if his hair was particularly rebellious, but it was very fine and soft, and thus had a tendency to flop on to his forehead if it went unchecked.

He was still trying to get his hair to behave when he heard Frank call down the hall, “So should we head over then? Game’s gonna start in a minute.”

“Yep!” Remus called back. He quickly checked that his breath smelled alright (it did) and that he looked alright (he did), before he strode out his room. He nearly slammed into Frank on his way out of his room, as his mind was occupied by thoughts of talking to the gorgeous new neighbour.

Frank led the way out of the flat, flicking the hallway light off before they both left the flat. He locked the door and they both headed over to the neighbouring flat. It had gotten even chillier in the past hour and a half, and Remus found himself wishing that he’d put on a warmer jersey. _Hopefully they’ll have a heater going_ , he thought to himself.

After Frank had pressed the doorbell, they only had to wait a few short moment before Sirius was opening the door.

“Hey! Come in,” he said, gesturing towards the lounge, “James is watching the pre-commentary already.”

The three men followed the source of blasting noise down the hallway, and were greeted in the lounge by a shout from James. “Hiya! Come, sit, game’s about to start!”

Frank eagerly followed James’ suggestion, sinking into the seat next to him. “Love the couch - Liverpool colours?”

James turned to him excitedly. “Liverpool colours! Yeah, man! You support?”

This started an intense conversation about Liverpool, Steven Gerrard and football. Sirius and Remus stood back watching in silence for a few minutes, until Sirius remembered he was hosting.

He turned to Remus and opened his mouth intending to speak, but found himself standing gormlessly with his mouth open. Remus chuckled lightly, then said, “Beer, then?”

Sirius snapped his fingers, squeezing behind Remus to go the fridge.  Remus stilled in response, his breath catching in his throat.

“We have Kronenbourg 1664 … and Kronenbourg 1664,” he called out to Remus as he stared into the nearly empty fridge.

“Kronenbourg it is then,” Remus replied. Sirius returned to the lounge with four bottles, handing two to James on the way past. He opened Remus’ for him before passing him the rapidly condensing bottle. They clinked their bottles together as perfunctory cheers.

They both wandered over to the second couch and sat next to each other. The other two men were already deeply engrossed in the game. “So who are we supporting?” Remus asked in confusion.

Frank responded without shifting his focus, “Swansea. ‘Cos Alice is from Wales.”

“And for those of us not dating Welsh girls?” Remus asked.

James snorted a laugh, then said, “Well, if Man United wins it makes the League a lot harder for Liverpool. Big team and all that. So if Swansea wins, United can fuck off.”

“Very insightful,” Sirius remarked. He turned to Remus with a gleam in his eye. “So. What’s your story?”

“My story? You wanna know the short version or the long one with the deep tragic past?” Remus asked.

Sirius chuckled, and replied, “Oh, definitely the long version. You have a dark past plagued with demons? A curse on your family? String of untimely goldfish deaths? Do tell.”

Remus thought for a moment. “Well, if we’re really doing the long version, I guess we go right back to the beginning. I was born here in Birmingham-“

He was shortly interrupted by Sirius, “Well, if we’re going back that far, we need crisps. James, do we have crisps?”

“Shh,” James said, his eyes glued to the TV, “Swansea’s about to score.”

Sirius sighed. “I think I have some in my room.” He stood up and motioned for Remus to follow him.

As they closed the hallway door behind them they heard Frank and James explode in shouts of “OFFSIDE, REF, ARE YOU FUCKING BLIND?” Sirius turned to Remus and exaggeratedly rolled his eyes.

He dug around in a small box perched on his bed marked ‘snacks and stuff’ until he found an unopened packet of Walker’s crisps. “You like sour cream and chive?”

Remus nodded, “It’s my favourite.” He reached for a handful from the newly opened bag, then looked around him for a place to sit.

“Sorry!” Sirius said, moving boxes off his desk, the desk chair and his bed. “Sit anywhere, doesn’t matter.”

After deliberating for two seconds, Remus boldly chose to sit next to Sirius, perching himself next to a pile of pillows. The other man seemed to inhabit a constant state of lounging, and was sitting with his legs spread wide and his head in his hand. He grinned cheekily at Remus. “So. You were gonna tell me about your dark and mysterious past plagued by goldfish murder.”

Remus tried to refrain from snorting his chips everywhere, swallowing forcibly. “So many died, Sirius. It was really tragic. I cried,” he said with a blank expression.

Sirius sniggered and took a swig from his beer. “Sorry, no, you were saying you were born here?”

“Yeah, born and raised. My parents still live just across town, Dad likes to visit a lot and make sure that my life isn’t falling apart. Mum used to insist on coming to do my laundry but I’ve managed to convince her that I know how to use fabric softener, so she’s backed off recently.”

“And do you? Know how to use fabric softener?”

“Not a clue,” Remus admitted, “But anything to stop her coming over twice a week and fussing about the state of my room.”

Sirius gestured to his messy half-unpacked room in a show of solidarity. “Fair enough. So what do you do? Study still?” He motioned to Remus’ sweatshirt.

Remus found himself looking down at his shirt in confusion for a moment before he caught on. “Oh! Yeah, yeah, I’m doing honours this year.”

“Art history?”, Sirius asked, taking a sip of beer as Remus frowned in confusion.

“Yeah - how’d you guess?”

He pointed to Remus’ t-shirt. “C’mon man. Magritte shirt? Ceci n’est pas une pipe? If that’s not some art history student in-joke I don’t know what is.”

Remus smiled gently, feeling his cheeks beginning to flush. “I didn’t think any non-art history person would get it. Unless you are too?”

“No, no. Just - well, I went to public school. Harrow. So I was subjected to many hours of tedious art memorization and essays. Although I did prefer to write about how gay Michelangelo’s art was -“

Sirius was interrupted by a shout of laughter from Remus. He wiped away a tear as Sirius explained, “Well, the women are basically just hot men with ice cream scoop tits, aren’t they?” Remus nodded through his peals of laughter, indicating for Sirius to continue.

“- Well, besides my brilliant essays on badly shaped breasts, I also wrote a few on Magritte, I think. Or at least I spent a lot of time being very confused by his paintings.”

“So you didn’t continue with art history then?”

Sirius shook his head. “No. I became a terrible disappointment to my parents and did music and media studies. But I finished uni 2 years ago, so now I’m out in the big bad world.”

“And you work?” Remus asked.

“Yeah, me and James both do.  I write freelance for NME and their website - the music magazine?,” Remus nodded, “And James is actually starting his first teaching job on Monday. We’ve cut moving here a bit short so he’s a bit frazzled about the whole thing, but he’s pretty excited. He teaches English and Drama.”

“Right. That’s really cool, the NME thing!” Remus said excitedly.

“Yeah, it’s awesome. Mostly I go to local gigs and write about them, but I also do album reviews and I’ve got my first feature article soon.”

“Wow. So you and James have lived together for a while? Are you-“ he paused, trying to word his question correctly, “Are you - ?“

Sirius chuckled, “We’re not a couple, no. But we do get that a lot. We’ve lived together for … well, for more than ten years, technically. We boarded together at Harrow. But we’ve been flatting together all through uni and still even now that we’re working, too. We’re like brothers more than anything, really.”

“Right. Sorry - must get a bit tiring, people thinking that you’re both gay all the time,” Remus said. He had thought that Sirius gave off a bit of a queer vibe, but perhaps his gaydar was a bit off. It always had been, so he usually just resigned himself to looking at other guys and hoping that they’d come up to him.

“Well, it is for James,” Sirius started to explain. Remus’ ears perked up at this, and he began to reconsider his resigned attitude. “A few times, girls that he’s fancied thought that he and I were having it off. But it doesn’t bother me too much. At least people are getting the right kind of vibe off me.” He grinned cheekily at Remus. Remus swallowed, hard.

Sirius continued, “And what about yourself? And your flatmate - Frank? - yeah, Frank, he said he had a girlfriend?”

“Yeah, Frank and Alice have been dating for forever now. But I’m just their decorative third wheel, I guess,” Remus said, trying to think how to weave delicately into the conversation how much of a raging homosexual he was, “ … Alice is always trying to set me up with guys from her work, but I think that’s more for their benefit than mine.”

Remus tried to subtly gauge Sirius’ reaction to him being gay, but the other man simply brushed it off with a smile, “Sounds like James’ mum, she’s always setting him up on dates with nice Chinese lawyer girls. So you’ve known Frank for a bit then?”

He took a swig from his beer before replying, “Yeah, we met in our first year uni halls. He’s also in postgrad, so we’re like the ‘stay in uni forever’ duo. This is our first year flatting together though. It’s going pretty good, apart from when his girlfriend steals all the hot water. How girls take such long showers I’ll never know.”

“It’s all the long hair care and leg shaving,” Sirius replied, running his fingers through his hair to demonstrate, “I have the same problem.”

“With the leg shaving?” Remus asked jokingly.

Sirius snorted. “Yeah, for all my mini skirt and bikini wearing.”

“Of course.”

The two men kept talking for nearly two hours, completely wrapped up in their conversation. Remus told Sirius all about Birmingham and their neighbourhood, and they both talked more about themselves. It transpired that Remus had not listened to Artic Monkeys before, which Sirius took personal offense to. Thus, they eventually found themselves sitting in peaceful company as Sirius introduced Remus to his favourite tracks, both of them ignoring the protesting shouts from the living room about the football game.

Remus leant back on the pillows, closing his eyes to experience the music better. It wasn’t like anything he usually listened to, as he tended to like classics such as Cat Stevens and Simon and Garfunkel.

“Oh, this one’s one of my favourites!” Sirius said, clicking on a new iTunes track mid-song. “Sorry, for someone who writes for a music magazine I’m actually awful at listening to music.” Remus waved off his apologies and tried to listen to the lyrics.

Sirius sang along to the song, obviously having memorized it long ago. _You're rarer than a can of dandelion and burdock / And those other girls are just post-mix lemonade_ , he crooned in a surprisingly good singing voice. Remus smiled to himself and relaxed further into the pillows behind him, almost lying down.

They were interrupted by James swinging his head around the corner of Sirius’ bedroom. “Game’s over Padfoot. Swansea lost. All is despair.” He plonked himself down on the bed next to Remus, making room for Frank to stand in the doorway. Sirius paused the music and stared at James with a look of mock pity.

“Padfoot?” asked Frank in confusion.

This brought a smile to James’ face. “Oh this is good. We haven’t had someone ask in a while. You wanna tell, Padfoot?”

Sirius sighed. “Well. Mine comes from my motorbike. She’s called Black Dog, half after the legend and half after the Led Zep song. You know the legend?” Remus and Frank shook their heads. “Well, it’s about this ominous big black ghost dog that’s supposed to be an omen of death. I thought it was a really great name for a bike. Scary, spooky, all that. But Prongs thought it was hilarious, so he decided to call me after the bike. But Padfoot is one of the nicknames of the Black Dog myth. So it’s a nickname of a nickname of a nickname, really.” James grinned mischievously.

“And he’s called Prongs,” James’ grin fell from his face, and he sighed. Sirius continued, “because one Christmas we were at his house, and his Mum had us wearing those silly antler hat things for a family photo. James was putting his on and he goes -“ he paused to laugh, “he goes - ‘Why do I have to wear these prongs, Mǔqīn?’ He couldn’t remember the word for antlers!”

Frank and Remus chuckled together. James sighed again and said, “Padfoot thinks it’s fucking hysterical. I’ve never lived it down.” The two man glared playfully at each other for a moment, before they broke into chortling.

James pulled himself together, then looked to the guests. “Did you guys want another beer or -?”

“Nah, we should probably be going,” Frank said as he looked at his watch, “We haven’t had tea yet, and Remus promised a feast of frozen chips and chicken nuggets.”

“Gourmet,” commented Sirius with a grin, bouncing his eyebrows at Remus, “Well we’d best let you go then.” He offered Remus his hand, and helped him to stand up. Remus tried not to react to holding Sirius’ hand, which he held for a split second too long that was necessary.  Sirius’ hands were surprisingly soft and his fingers were quite long, wrapping around Remus’ hand tightly. _Perfect for piano … and other things,_ thought Remus to himself.

Once Remus was standing up, he and Sirius came to stand only a hand’s width apart. Remus looked down at Sirius, cocked his head and smiled.

“Well, I’m sure we’ll see you guys soon. Feel free to come over for a beer or whatever,” Remus said, staring into Sirius’ eyes. They were a strange yet beautiful shade of grey, and Remus found himself captivated by them. He was only caught in the act when Sirius winked cheekily at him, causing him to blush and avert his gaze.

“Yeah, actually,” James said, “We’ll be having a flat warming on Friday night - next Friday, that is - with the few people we know here. You guys should come. Bring some mates. Bring Alice!”

Frank nodded eagerly, “Yeah sure. She’d love to come. She and her mates usually come over on Friday for drinks anyway, so we’ll suggest it to them.”

“Awesome,” Sirius said approvingly, “Well, I’m sure we’ll see you at the letterbox or whatever. Neighbourly places.”

Remus and Frank both nodded. “Sure. Thanks for the beer and everything,” Remus said, still averting Sirius’ gaze.

“No problem,” James replied, and lead the way down the hall to the front door, “See ya!”

Both men waved goodbye, starting to pace over to their flat to avoid hanging around on the quickly frosting lawn. They heard the click of the lock behind them just as their own outdoor sensor light flicked on.

Frank hurriedly unlocked the door and they both bundled inside, exaggeratingly rubbing their hands together from the cold. Frank headed towards the kitchen to turn the oven on.

“They seem really nice! That James is very … energetic,” he said to Remus, who had followed him to the kitchen.

“I think they both are. Bit of a change from us”, Remus replied.

“Mellow city over here,” Frank said, gesturing to his fluffy cardigan, “ - You and Sirius were talking for ages. Was he playing you music?”

Remus found himself smiling despite himself. “Yeah, we really clicked. He was showing me some Arctic Monkeys. He writes for NME, can you believe it? And drives a motorbike. And he’s actually really funny, he was saying how-“ Remus caught himself as he realised that Frank was staring at him. “What?”

“Nothing - just you haven’t gone on about a guy since that Edgar guy last year,” Frank explained. A bright twinkle came to the other man’s eye. “Wait - you don’t fancy him do you?”

Remus rolled his eyes for emphasis. “I barely know him, Frank!”

“Yeah, ok, not like you guys were talking away in his room for two hours.” He raised his eyebrows judgingly at Remus, before reaching into the freezer to grab the chicken nuggets.

Remus felt his cheeks start to go red, then sighed, “Well - his hair is kind of gorgeous. And we did kind of hit it off …”

Frank grinned and fist pumped the air. “I knew it!”

“Well, it’s not like I’ll do anything about it. I never do.”

“He might come to you. You never know. Be optimistic for once, Remus!”

Remus heaved a sigh again. “I won’t get my hopes up. He’s way out of my league.”

“Whatever you say,” Frank said absent-mindedly as he put the tray of nuggets in the oven, “But I think you sell yourself short.”

Remus opened his mouth to retort, but stopped short. Maybe Frank was right. He hadn’t dated anyone since Edgar, and he was awful at doing the casual hook-ups thing, so  he couldn’t trust his own judgement.

 _Maybe this time, I’ll give it a chance. What’s the worst that could happen?_ , Remus thought to himself as he headed over to the coffee table to go tidy up his things from his morning studying. He ignored the niggling voice of anxiety in the back of his brain, and took his stuff back to his room so he could go have an attempt at Facebook stalking Sirius in private. _Hopefully his photos will be public_ , he mused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone liked seeing the boys meet for the first time! I was excited writing it!
> 
> Public school = private, fancy, fee paying boarding school. Padfoot is actually a name of the ‘black dog’ legend in Lanchashire! The more you know: brought to you by Wikipedia.
> 
> Cantonese:
> 
> Mǔqīn - Mum


	4. Flat D: 11:34 am

Over the next few days, the four young men of Flat C and D of 42 Marauder Avenue did not see much of each other. What with sleeping in on Sunday, grocery shopping, starting work and attending uni, they only saw glimpses of each other in the form of a quick polite wave or a car going down the shared driveway. Sirius found this displeasing, and planned to find an excuse to go see Remus. But first, he had to actually get something done with his day.

By the time Sirius had dragged himself out of bed, pulled on his jeans and eaten his too-sugary cereal, it was past 11am. He had to finish and post his review of the _Freeze the Atlantic_ LP today, and email the longer version to his editor. But sadly his internet hadn’t been connected yet. It was supposed to be set up tomorrow, but they hadn’t even received the complimentary wireless modem in the post yet. He resolved to go check the mailbox again just in case it had arrived. Then, he would have to go to McDonalds or something to find some wifi. He sighed and pulled on a pair on well-worn canvas sneakers in preparation for heading outside.

After locking the door behind him, Sirius turned and made his way down the communal driveway for the flat complex. As he passed the windows of Flat C, he tried to subtly peer in to see if Remus was home but couldn’t spot any movement. He had just turned around the corner of building to access the long line of letterboxes when he saw him. Tall lanky blondeness and all, there he was, crouched over the letterbox of Flat C. Sirius allowed himself a brief moment for his eyes to waver over Remus’ arse before he cleared his throat.

“Morning!” he said with a grin, pacing over to stand beside Remus.

“Oh! Hello,” Remus said, abandoning his small pile of post and looking up from his letterbox , “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Yeah - at my own letterbox.” He winked at Remus, then opened the mailbox marked Flat D. he pulled out a large parcel and shouted a yell of glee.

“What is it?” Remus asked, his hands full of letters and a parcel.

“Our internet modem! The wifi’s getting connected tomorrow at ours, we were wondering if we’d have the modem by then.” He double checked the box for any other post, and then shut it behind him. Remus led them both back down the driveway.

“So you haven’t had wifi these last few day? Torture, surely!” Remus said melodramatically.

Sirius nodded, his eyes wide. “James has been on about not being able to see all the World Cup results live, and we’ve both been missing work emails. I have to do some work stuff today, got no idea what I’m gonna do. Thought I’d maybe head to a café or Mackey-D's to use their free wifi.”

“Tell you what,” Remus said, “Come over and use ours.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t. Don’t want to impose.” Sirius waved off the suggestion in his best impression of a nosy great aunt who actually does want to impose, thank you very much, and would you mind getting her a cup of tea?

Remus stopped outside his front door. “No, really. We’ve got unlimited, I’m here all afternoon doing some uni stuff. Come on over after you’ve sorted that out, we’ll work together.” He pointed to the large parcel containing the modem under Sirius’ arm.

“You sure?” Sirius asked sincerely. Remus nodded. “Ok. Be over in a bit then.”

Remus smiled, and called out to Sirius as he walked across the lawn, “I’ll put the kettle on!”

Sirius gave him a thumbs up before stepping through his own front door.

He made quick work of setting up the modem, only managing to try incorrectly inserting the USB connections a few times. Within 10 minutes, he’d set up the modem and gathered all his necessary work gear. He grabbed a jersey off the side of the sofa, and a pack of semi-fancy biscuits that James had been saving for the flat warming. He made a mental note to buy a replacement packet, then strode over to Remus’ flat with his arms filled with stuff.

The doorbell barely rang for half a ‘ding-dong’ before Remus was swinging the door wide open, with a soft smile on his face.

“Come in!” He gestured towards the lounge and shut the door behind Sirius. “I hope you like coffee, I’ve been brewing a pot.”

Sirius put down his things on the kitchen bench and nodded. “A man after my own heart. Coffee is my poison of choice. After hard crystal meth, of course.”

“Naturally.” Remus said with a snort. “Make yourself at home. I usually just sit down beside the coffee table but we do have that dining table there.”

Sirius cast his eyes over the dining table, which was covered in piles of half-opened letters, a basket of laundry and a neglected fruit bowl. “Coffee table’s fine.”

He set about finding an outlet for his laptop charger and the best place for his pile of notes and albums. He carefully placed the packet of biscuits next to Remus’ laptop, then put his laptop down beside him on the sofa.

“Can I help with anything?” he asked, twisting his head to look at Remus, who was at that very moment plunging the coffee.

“No, all good. You take milk or sugar?”

“Uh … no milk, about 4 sugars.”

Remus frowned, looking over at Sirius in bemusement. “That’s a lot of sugar.”

“What can I say? I like it sweet. I should probably just drink Red Bull or something, but I like something hot.”

“Fair enough.” Remus said as he handed Sirius his mug. He sat down in the armchair next to Sirius, and his eyes lit up when he caught sight of the biscuits.

“Bourbon creams? Oh my god, they’re my favourite! Can I have one?”

Sirius couldn’t help but smile at Remus’ delight. He reached over and opened the packet. “Here, sure, have them all. Brought them to share with you.”

Remus smiled back, and took two biscuits, balancing them on the edge of his laptop. “You didn’t have to do that.”

 “Yeah, I know, but it’s a bit strange, I guess, having the new neighbour over, working together. Seemed like bringing biscuits was the least I could do to ease the weirdness,” Sirius explained.

“No, I like it. I think it’s very neighbourly, in a kind of old-fashioned way. Minus the wifi. “

Sirius chuckled. “Right. Next thing you know I’ll be popping around to borrow a cup of sugar.”

Remus looked Sirius up and down, a smirk playing on his lips. He noted the battered sneakers, tight, faded jeans and the token black t-shirt. “Somehow I don’t see you as the sugar borrowing type.”

Struggling to stop himself from making an ‘I’m sweet enough anyway’ joke, Sirius shrugged. “Hey, you’d be surprised. I make a mean sticky date pudding.”

“I think I need to see evidence of that. I’ll hold you to it.” Remus mockingly glared at Sirius. Sirius scrunched up his nose cheekily in return, before shifting his focus to his coffee.

Sirius sipped away at his coffee as he set up his laptop and found the right notes for his article. He hit a snag when he tried to open up a tab for nme.com, forgetting he wasn’t at home.

“Sorry, what was the wifi password, mate?”

Remus sighed and raised his eyebrows in exasperation. “Frank set it. It’s - um - something to do with rocks? He’s a geology major. Let me check,” he said as he opened up the wifi properties on his laptop, “… it’s -  quakingquaquaversalquartz09.”

“He - really likes his Qs.”

“Yeah. Wait, just pass me your laptop, I’ll type it in.”

After hastily double checking that he had nothing too embarrassing on his desktop, Sirius handed Remus his laptop.

Remus’ eyes flicked across Sirius’s careen and he smiled. After he typed in the password, he handed it back to Remus.

“I like the background. That’s your bike, yeah?”

 “Yeah, that’s Black Dog. We go way back, she’s been with me since my uni days. I should take you for a spin on her.” 

“Oh - not sure that’s the best idea. My balance is all over the place, might make you crash.”

Sirius shook his head and replied , “Not if you hold on tight.”

He smiled as he saw Remus’ cheeks start to redden slightly, but forced himself to look away. He busied himself opening up all the programs he needed on the computer, focusing too intently on his iTunes _Freeze the Atlantic_ playlist so as to allow Remus to compose himself. When he returned his gaze to Remus, the man was holding an orange highlighter between his teeth with a thick textbook balanced in front of him.

They both became engrossed in their work for a short while, the only sounds between them the muffled noises of bass and drums coming from Sirius’ headphones and the dragging of Remus’ highlighter across paper.

Although Sirius tried to stay focused on listening to the album and taking notes for his final review edit, he found that he kept becoming distracted by Remus. More specifically, he was mesmerised by Remus’ blonde hair that fell in his eyes causing him to constantly push it back, and the way that he bit his lip before nodding slightly to himself and highlighting something.

Sirius noted how even though he was very tall, Remus had still managed to fold himself into the small squishy armchair effortlessly. He had one foot underneath his arse, with the other leg crossing over the other. Sirius wondered for a moment if that was uncomfortable, before he remembered that not everyone wore impossibly tight jeans like he did. Although Remus’ trousers did hug his arse beautifully, they didn’t stop him from showcasing how flexible he was. Sirius tried not to concentrate on that thought too much, and attempted again to rein in his focus.

He let himself become absorbed in writing, and eventually completed typing up the final copy of his short review. He then read it over once more, frowning at the paragraph in front of him.

“Remus - can you think of a better word for grind?”

“Grind?”, Remus said, his face attempting to look as innocent as possible.

“Yeah, for a guitar riff. Kind of grinding, pounding … uh, something less sexual?”

Remus snorted, and held his highlighter to his mouth in thought. “Hmmmm. Crunch? Is that guitar-y?”

“Huh. Crunch. ‘Soaring, crunching riffs’. Yeah. That fits well. Thank you!” He beamed at Remus.

“No problem.” Remus returned the smile.

Sirius set about posting the review online, making sure to double check the LP release date and running time before finalising it for evaluation and posting by one of the web editors later that day. He then opened up his draft of the long review intended for the magazine publication next week, and inserted one of the band’s earlier EPs to listen to as he wrote. The band wasn’t exactly to his taste, but you only got to do the popular or great bands by slogging through the everyday local stuff.

He clicked on the ‘Shivering & Dazed’ album, letting it play through as he started to edit his draft from yesterday. The third track on the album started to play as Sirius overheard Remus muttering to himself.

He looked over to the other man and saw him mouthing swear words to his textbook as he thumbed the edge of the page in vain. Sirius silently took out his earbuds, and leant over to turn the page for Remus.

“You mind?” he asked Remus softly, who was obviously becoming quite frustrated.

“Oh,” Remus said, surprised, “Yeah. Thanks.”

Sirius nodded softly, then deftly turned the page. His hand brushed against Remus’, and he felt a slight tingle ripple through him like a fluttering breeze.

He glanced at Remus to check he was ok. “Wanna sit next to me so I can turn them?” he asked gently.

Remus’s exasperated expression relaxed, and he nodded. “Thanks. It’s just - my fucking fingers-“

He waved away Remus’s stumbling explanation. “Don’t worry about it.”

Remus smiled faintly, then clambered over Sirius’ power cord and legs, and nestled next to him on the small sofa. They soon fell into a rhythm of Sirius turning pages every few minutes for Remus between his sporadic typing and humming along to the entire _Freeze the Atlantic_ discography.

By the time Remus had slogged through his readings for the week and Sirius had finalised and sent in his longer album review, the afternoon was nearly over. Sirius only realised this when his stomach informed him rudely that it had not been fed a few hours ago. He checked the time in the corner of his laptop screen then nudged Remus. The other man looked up from the last page of his reads with a confused frown.

“Hmmm?”

“It’s past 4 o’clock Remus. Did you eat earlier?”

Remus stomach gurgled in response. He glared down at his abdomen as if to reprimand it. “It seems I did not. Want to eat something? I think I have some leftover mince-“ Remus started to stand up, but Sirius stopped him, holding his hand to Remus’ forearm.

“I’ll do it. Mince with what?”

“Uhh, I think I have bread? Wraps if we’re lucky? You don’t have to do it, I’m nearly finished this page. Plus, you’re the guest.”

“Guest schmest,” Sirius replied, “I’ve made a little home here this afternoon. See that little dip in the couch seat? I made that. It’s my home now.”

Remus sniggered and Sirius continued, “So. Mince on toast?”

“Sounds perfect. Very studenty.”

“Only the best,” Sirius said with a grin. He turned the oven on to grill as he passed it, searching through the kitchen for the ingredients.

Soon afterward, Remus and Sirius found themselves eating sloppy mince on toast in front of the late afternoon TV news bulletin. Sirius had also managed to find some forgotten beer at the pack of the fridge, and in lieu of Remus remembering whose it was in the first place, the two had decided to drink them themselves. The two were unable to entirely focus on the news programme however, and soon became swept up in discussion about whether beer matched well with leftover mince, and Sirius’ assertion that any news story featuring robots was automatically 20% cooler. Remus was not convinced by Sirius’ robot argument, and contended that any news about space was inherently cooler than robots.

“I mean, space and stars and the moon are so much better than robots.  Stuff beyond our planet, beyond what we can ever see or imagine - that’s cool,” Remus argued.

“Yes - but we can only see those because of robots. See?”

Remus nodded in concession. “Fair enough. But I dunno. Maybe it all stems from my obsessive love for _The Starry Night_. All those swirling stars and lights - they’re just so beautiful.”

‘Well, I’ll give you that. But does that imply that you don’t like robots simply because the Impressionists didn’t paint them?”

This provoked a bark of laughter from Remus. “Probably. Dirty, awful art history student here, I can’t be trusted with anything after the invention of smartphone photography.”

Sirius snorted. “So you don’t Snapchat then?”

“No. I don’t really understand it. Who wants to see blurry selfies of me with strange captions and half-arsed doodles?”

“I would, for one,” Sirius admitted. He gazed into Remus’ eyes brazenly, a smirk playing on his lips. He watched as Remus bit his lip and cleared his throat.

“Well. I’ll have to think about getting it then.”

Sirius raised his eyebrows cheekily, breaking eye contact to check his watch again. “I should probably be going. James’ mum invited us both over for dinner and she likes to eat early, so we’ll be leaving soon.”

Remus nodded, and stood to take Sirius’ empty plate and beer bottle. They both wandered toward the general direction of the kitchen, Sirius heading to the sofa to collect his things.

Once he had all of his stuff loaded in his arms in a neat pile, he paced over to the kitchen bench. Remus was standing facing him, rinsing the dishes.

“Well, thanks for letting me use your wifi and loaf around. I had a good time,” Sirius said. _More than good,_ he thought _, lovely, wonderful, great, fantastic._

The train of synonyms running through Sirius’ mind was halted as Remus paced around the bench, wiping his hands off on a tea towel. “No problem. I liked the company. We should do it again - I liked having a working buddy.”

Sirius placed his stuff down for a moment on the bench, then stalled. He wasn’t sure what gesture was appropriate. He hastily ran over the options in his mind. _Shaking hands - too formal. Hugging - maybe too friendly. Waving- awkward when we’re this close. Kissing - oh god. **Oh god.**_

Before the silence became too awkward, Sirius leaned in and clumsily patted Remus’ shoulder.

“Yeah, sure.” Sirius smiled tightly, then gathered his stuff and let Remus lead him to the front door.

He waved after he stepped out the door, the tight smile still on his face. “Thanks, again. Bye!”

“See ya,” Remus said before shutting the door.

Sirius stood still for a moment, shutting his eyes tightly in embarrassment. Then, he swiveled on his heel and headed over to his flat.

He muttered to himself as he paced across the lawn, “Could I be any stupider …‘I had a good time’. Fuck’s sake … Tapping his shoulder? What’s wrong with me?”. He rolled his eyes, forcing the thoughts way for the time being, and slipped back inside his flat. He had James’s banter and his mum’s perfect chicken chow mein to distract him for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Freeze the Atlantic, their music and the NME review I based Sirius’ work on are all real, go check them out :) Thanks again for reading!


	5. Flat C: 5:21 pm

“Lily, Alice - should I wear a tie or no tie?” Remus asked absent-mindedly as he wandered into the living room. He held up the dark grey tie in question against the blue shirt he was wearing.

Both women turned their heads to stare at him in judgement. Lily frowned and Alice raised one eyebrow, yet they didn’t speak.

“C’mon guys - Frank is useless at stuff like this, and I don’t trust myself!”

Lily sighed, then turned to Alice and said, “Why are boys completely useless at dressing themselves?” Alice shrugged in reply.

Lily stood and paced over to Remus, then took the tie out of his hands. “No tie. It’s only a flat warming, and from what you’ve told me these guys are pretty laidback. Which also means roll your sleeves up to the elbows.”

“Why?” Remus asked

“It’s sexier,” Alice called out from the armchair, “And more casual. If you’d ever opened a Cosmo or men’s fashion magazine you’d know.”

Remus considered this, wondering if it was worth asking why Alice paid such attention to men’s fashion trends. After a moment’s consideration, he thought better of himself and started to roll up the sleeves.

“So - why the sudden concern over how we look?” Lily asked with a smirk, “Is there a hot boy at the party?”

Alice laughed, and headed to stand next to Lily. “Haven’t I told you? Whenever I’ve tried to engage Remus in casual conversation for longer than 2 minutes this week, all he’s talked about is - what’s his name Remus?”

He groaned. “Sirius.”

“Apparently he’s quite the looker,” Alice explained.

“Well. You’ll have to point him out,” Lily said with a smile, raising her eyebrows.

“If he’s been telling the truth he shouldn’t have to point him out - apparently he’s got gorgeous dark hair and dresses like an indie Rolling Stone cover boy … Anyway - we’ll see him in a minute. If Franks’ ready?!” Alice yelled out the last part in the direction of the hallway.

Frank appeared in the doorway, still pulling his left arm through an olive toned cardigan. “Ok, ok. I’m ready. Let’s go?”

They all nodded in agreement and headed out the door together, letting Remus lead the way to the other flat. He hesitated for a second before pressing the doorbell, hoping that it would be heard over the music they could hear from outside.

Just when Remus was about to give up and knock, the door was opened by a curvy woman about their age with black hair that formed around her head in a mass of tight, bouncy curls. She smiled widely.

“Hi, I’m Ros”, she said, beckoning the four inside, “I’m a friend of James and Sirius’ from school. Well, not from their school, but a sister school. We went to dances and things together and … oh. Sorry - you are?”

Remus chuckled. “We live next door. I’m Remus, and these ones are Frank, Alice and Lily.”

“Pleasure,” Ros said, shaking each of their hands, “Everyone’s through here, but there’s only a few of us keen ones so far.”

She led them down the corridor, calling out when they stepped through the open doorway, “Oi! Potter! Black! Welcome your guests!”

This caught the attention of James, who was perched on the armrest of a sofa talking to a petite blonde woman in an oversized jersey. He grinned and waved, quickly saying goodbye to the woman before heading over to greet the others.

“Hey, Ros, see you’ve met Remus and Frank. But you’ve also met two people I haven’t. How rude of you, Ros.” She rolled her eyes dramatically and left to go sit by the woman James had just left.

Frank cleared his throat. “James, this is my girlfriend Alice-“

James interjected, “Heard all about you, Alice. I was forced to support Swansea in your name. Well, not forced. Coerced,” he smiled and shook her hand, “And this is?”

“Lily Evans, James Potter. James Potter, Lily Evans. Lily works at the hospital with Alice. Alice is a scrub nurse, and Lily is a paediatric surgeon in training.”

“Impressive. Both of you, ladies,” James flashed them another smile.

“Yeah, Lily is actually one of the smartest women - the smartest people - I’ve ever met,” Remus explained, “And, she also supports Liverpool.”

James looked to her excitedly. “No way! Two new Liverpool supporter mates in one week? It’s a dream come true.”

James, Lily and Frank soon were drawn into yet another passionate discussion about football, leaving Remus and Alice standing awkwardly to the side.

They both looked around the room for a few moments, unsure what to do next. However, Remus spotted a table laid with snacks over on the other side of the room. He jerked his head, and he and Alice head over towards the table.

Soon after, the two stood beside the snack table with a handful of crisps each. They munched their way through the crisps as they surveyed the room again. Just as Remus was about to give up looking for him, Sirius appeared out of nowhere with a few bottles of beer in his hands.

“Hey, guys! Thanks for coming,” he said with what was becoming his trademark grin, “Wanna beer?”

Alice and Remus both nodded, taking a bottle each from Sirius.

“You must be Sirius,” Alice said with a knowing smile, “I’m Frank’s girlfriend Alice.”

“Ah the great Welsh Alice. Wish I could say I’ve heard a lot but I haven’t. In fact, Remus here hasn’t told me much about you or Frank. “

Alice gave Remus a quick, sharp glare. “Well, I’ll get Frank over here and then we can tell you together. Frank!”

Frank turned his head sharply and then strode over towards the other three.

“Hey, Sirius. I see you’ve met Alice.”

Sirius nodded. “Met, but not heard much of. Remus has been entirely neglectful in telling me much about either of you.” He winked playfully at Remus, who was standing politely to the side.

“Well, I’m a geology honours student and Alice is a scrub nurse at the hospital,” Frank explained.

Alice continued, “And we’ve been dating for - how long babe? - about 7 years, give or take. Since 5th form, on and off until we got to uni, really.”

They smiled at each other, and Frank took Alice’s hand. “Yeah. So we met in 5th form Biology. We got seated next to each other, because we’re Frank Longbottom and Alice Lloyd. So we ended up as science fair and lab partners for the next few years.”

“I was always better at dissections, though,” Alice said with a laugh, “Frank’s a bit squeamish, so when we first had to dissect a sheep heart in 5th form he couldn’t even hold the scalpel. He went white and had to sit down. So I did the work that day. And for every dissection after that.”

“She actually asked me out that same afternoon.”

“I guess I just felt sorry for him.” Frank looked down at her in mock shock, and she giggled.

Sirius laughed, nearly spluttering his sip of beer out. “That’s fantastic. I like you,” he said, pointing at Alice.

He paused, then spoke again, “Well, I think it’s time for some introductions. Mostly everyone’s here now.” He beckoned for the three to follow him then walked them around the room to meet the other party guests.

They stopped short at the first couch, where James was perched on the edge of the couch, where Lily, Ros and the blonde woman with the large jersey were seated.

“Prongs! I bring guests to introduce and entertain!”

James looked up with wide eyes. “Oh! Yes. Ok.” Pointing to each of them as he went, James introduced the group to each other. “We have Remus and Frank, next door neighbours. Alice, girlfriend of Frank. Sirius, absolute wanker and my best friend for some reason. Me, James, flat master extraordinaire. And here we have Lily, Ros and Charity.”

Sirius nodded, then continued the introductions, “Ros is a mate of ours from school days. Famous booze smuggler, great for a laugh. Has recently turned her booze talents into a proper grown up job and runs a pub in town.”

Ros beamed up at the other three, “Yes, we’ve met. I let them in because you two are crap excuses for hosts.”

James gasped. “Am not. Look at me, introducing people, putting chips in bowls, finding an appropriate iPod playlist. Very adequate.”

He glared playfully at Ros before turning to face Lily and Charity. “I believe, apart from Padfoot, we’ve all met Lily. Friend of Alice’s, future hard-core baby surgeon. Saving lives, taking names and all that. And this is Charity, sometimes called Cherry but doesn’t like it much.”

This warranted a groan from Charity. “Sorry. Charity. Only likes to be called Charity. Has never been called anything else. We are fellow educators, except Charity specialises in very small people who play with blocks. We met at the education campus at uni, and now she teaches at the kindy around the corner. Small world.”

James, full of self pride from introducing all the women at the party to each other, stood and left to go talk to a group of three stockishly built men. However, the others barely noticed, and Ros and Charity shifted to make room for Alice to squeeze in next to them.  Frank perched on the side of the couch, leaning over Lily. They were all soon wrapped in conversation, leaving Remus and Sirius standing awkwardly in front of them.

Sirius took Remus’ forearm and led him through to the kitchen wordlessly. He rummaged around in the cupboard for a moment then pulled out an old ice-cream container. He opened it to reveal a pile of chocolate brownies.

“James wanted to save them, but I think I can sneakily offer you one and not get in too much trouble,” he said, offering Remus the container.

Remus took one, saying thank you before biting into it. He eyes widened as he chewed, then he pointed to his mouth and nodded exaggeratedly.

“Yeah, they’re really good eh? Told you I could bake.”

Remus covered his mouth, as he was still eating, “No way. You made this?”

“Yep. But it’s my childhood nanny’s old recipe so I take little credit.”

“No, this is seriously good. Can I employ you as my brownie chef?”

Sirius laughed, “Well, I do have other talents to offer. But sure, if you’d like. I charge double for cute neighbours though.”

Remus felt himself blushing again, and averted his gaze to look out at the party. He tried not to let his mind linger on the ‘other talents’ and ‘cute’ parts.

“Well, I’ll have to think about it,” Remus replied. He cleared his throat then turned to face Sirius again. “So. Anyone else I should be introduced to?”

Sirius shifted to stand next to Remus, leaning against the counter. “Tell you what. I’ll point everyone out, then you can decide who you want to actually talk to.” Remus nodded, and Sirius continued, “Over there with James are some of our school mates. The two gingers are twins, Fabian and Gideon. We shared the same dorm in boarding house. They’re both rugby nuts. And the other one is Amos Diggory. He was the year above us. He’s very loud and blokey. I know him from the rowing team, but I think he’s a vet now.”

“You were on the rowing team?”

“Yeah. Well, I did double sculls with my brother. But all us rowers, Amos and everyone, we all saw each other so much on the river it was hard not to become mates.”

“How very - public school of you,” Remus said teasingly.

Sirius raised his eyebrows. “I know. But all us Harrovians have our cross to bear - James did Latin in school. He got top in 7th form. And I think Fabian and Gideon have enough upper class-ness about them from their names.”

Remus chuckled. “Yeah. Very posh.”

“Thanks. I’ll have to show you how to bow and curtsey properly sometime. Or something.”

“They teach you that?”, Remus asked bemused.

“Don’t even ask,” Sirius replied in a mock-serious tone. He smirked, and bounced his eyebrows again.

Sirius then pointed to a pair of blonde men who were standing near the music speakers. “That’s Roy and Ludo. Both old uni friends from the halls. Roy thinks he’s hot shit, don’t believe anything he says. He’s good for a laugh though. And Ludo’s not as bad, as long as you don’t gamble with him you should be ok.”

“Not the best of friends then?” Remus asked.

“Nah, but at our hall James and I got stuck on a floor with a big party reputation. I guess they saw two extroverted public school boys sharing a room and figured that’s where we belonged. I mean, they’re harmless. Just - yeah.”

“Fair enough,” Remus replied, “Not seeing anyone I’d rather talk to than you.”

Sirius’ mouth quirked up at the corner, his stomach fluttering. “Well, uh, over there talking to Frank and Charity is Marlene and Benjy, they’re -“

Sirius was stopped mid-sentence, distracted by a lanky bleach-haired man coming through the hallway entrance.

“Xeno! Over here!”

The man smiled upon seeing Sirius and made his way over to the kitchen.

“Let myself in, sounded like it was all in swing,” he said to Sirius, then offered his hand to Remus, “Hi, I’m Xenophilius Lovegood. You can call me Xeno if you find it easier.”

Remus shook his hand, and Sirius introduced him. “Xeno, this is Remus. Xeno and I are zine buddies. He writes on political theories and stuff you don’t really hear about in the news. And antique collecting.”

“Sorry - zine?”, Remus asked in confusion.

“Oh!”, Xeno exclaimed, “Well, a zine is a self-made and published magazine. It’s all about DIY and being away or different from the mainstream media. So I write two zines, _Quibbler_ and my new one, _Antiquarian_. Mostly my friends read them, but I’m really hoping to get _Quibbler_ a bit more out there, get into some alternative or investigative journalism.”

“Oh, right. I’m sure I would’ve heard about that sort of thing if I took more modern art papers. I’m an art history student, see. That sounds really cool though - and you said Sirius writes some too?”

Xeno nodded, and gestured for Sirius to explain.

“Yeah, I also write two. One I do monthly on motorcycle care and culture, called _Black Dog_ , and another which is semi-weekly, and mostly about me. Well, it’s a perzine, like, kind of a dairy almost? But other people read it. It’s about my experiences and opinions and stuff.”

“I’ll want to read that one,” Remus said with a soft smile, “What’s it called?”

“ _Padfoot_ ,” Sirius replied. For a few moments, their smiles reflected one another, and they let themselves stare into one another’s eyes.

However, they were again interrupted by Xeno, who turned to Sirius and asked him about how his new job was going. Before he turned to answer, Sirius slyly mouthed ‘sorry’ at Remus, before winking at him. Remus smiled wider, then waved silently at Sirius, and turned to find someone to speak to in his absence.

He caught the eye of James, who was still standing with Amos and the two ginger twins Remus had forgotten the names of. James beckoned him over, and Remus crossed the room to the group.

“Remus! Remus, this is Amos, Fabian and Gideon. We all went to school together.”

The three men all shook Remus’ hand, smiling politely. Amos spoke first. “James was just telling us about his first week teaching. Well, he was about to.”

“Oh, yes! It was really good! Even though I did already get reprimanded for swearing at my drama class of 17 year olds by the principal.”

Fabian and Gideon drew in twin breaths and shook their heads. “Tut tut, Potter. Always in trouble at school, even when you’re the teacher. Who is this bloke? Can’t talk any sense into him?”, one of them said.

James laughed. “No, don’t think so. Besides, it’s a woman. Her name’s McGonagall. I did hear her first name but it seems like the students all call her that. And I don’t feel quite old enough to be a real staff member yet, so I’ll stick with the last name.”

“There’s no charming her whatsoever?”

“Well, she’s about 70 and wears her hair in a really severe bun. Like scary Russian ballerina - except she’s Scottish. And she wears a lot of green tartan. So, no, don’t think I’ll be becoming a boy toy anytime soon.”

The other four chuckled at this, and Amos patted James on the shoulder teasingly. “Ah well. Probably would have fallen through anyway.”

“Wrinkly love just can’t last,” one of the twins remarked. This caused his twin to break out into a fit of laughter, and soon the rest of the group was bent over in hysterics.

After he was done wheezing, James wiped a tear from his eye and stood up straight. He grinned at everyone in the room, who had that had been staring at them as they laughed, and said, “Is anyone up for a game of Twister?”

A few of the faces in the room frowned in confusion.

“Twister? Like the kid’s game with the coloured circles?”, Roy called from across the room with an amused smirk.

James sighed. “Yes, the kid’s game. If you haven’t played Twister whilst mildly inebriated, you haven’t been to any good parties,” he announced.

Ros grinned from the couch. “Well, I’m game. Girls? Are we game?”

The other women and a few of the guys around the room nodded.

“Alright then!” James said, “Sirius, where did I leave it?”

Sirius poked his head out from behind a bookshelf and held a box in the air. James grinned, and took the box from him.

“Ok, folks! Twister! All who wish to play, stand, uh, there, and all fun-sucking losers can watch from the couch,” James said as he opened up the box and laid out the Twister mat in the middle of the floor.

As James set about refreshing everyone on the rules, Sirius came to stand next to Remus.

“You gonna play?”

Remus made a non-committal gesture with his head. “I never actually played as a kid, so I don’t know how good I’d be. Plus, you have to be pretty balanced, right? Looks slippery.”

“You never played? Wow. Uh, well, it’s kind of about balance sometimes but mostly about twisting. Hence the name,” he explained.

After considering this for a moment, Remus nodded. “Ok then. I’ll play. Do we have teams or?”

“”No, but we should!” Sirius said excitedly, “Oi James. Can we be in teams?”

“We can only have, like, 4 people at once on the mat, so, I’m not sure how-“

Sirius interjected, “How about pairs? And the winning pair plays the next winning pair like a competition? And if one of the pair wipes out, then that’s the whole pair gone?”

“Oh! Yes! That sounds good! Ok, everyone make a pair,” James said.

Those standing on the other side of the mat waiting to play split up into pairs. Predictably, Fabian and Gideon chose to be together, as did Frank and Alice.

Sirius turned to Remus and raised his eyebrows. “Dream team? You and me?”

Remus smiled. “James won’t be offended?”

“Nah,” Sirius replied, jerking his head in James’ direction, “I think he wants to play with Lily.”

James was, in fact, asking Lily if she would be his Twister partner at that very moment. Or at least, he was talking to her whilst also bending backwards in a style reminiscent of limbo dancing, probably in an attempt to show off flexibility. Lily was laughing at this, and she started to giggle as James tried to stretch his head back as far as it could go. He sprung back upwards and she nodded.

James winked at Lily, then turned and asked if anyone would be willing to be the spinner referee. Amos held up his hand from the couch, then stood and took the board from James.

“Ok, what two pairs will go first?,” Amos asked, sitting on a kitchen stool near the mat, “I think our gracious hosts James and Sirius, yeah?” The others standing to the side nodded.

“Right. James and his lovely partner….”

“Lily”, James said.

“James and the lovely Lily versus Sirius and - Remus,” he smiled widely and gestured for them to stand beside the mat.

Amos spun the wheel, then the game began. The first few moves were relatively simple, but soon the four found themselves with their arses in the air and their legs entwined with one another.

“Right leg yellow!” Amos called out.

James groaned, and tried to slide his legs further apart so he could reach. In the process, his glasses slipped off his nose and fell onto an empty red circle. He screeched dramatically, and tried to pick them up with his mouth.

“Will somebody save them, please?”

Alice reached in from where she was watching on the side-lines and picked them up. “Did you want them back on?”

He shook his head, “Nah, thanks. I’ll just go blind. Extra challenge!”

Lily chuckled at this, “You’ll make us lose, you prat.”

“Hey! I’m a Twister master I’ll have you know,” James retorted playfully.

Sirius snorted, moving his foot onto a yellow circle. “You keep telling yourself that James.”

“Ok, ok. Left hand blue,” Amos called out.

Sirius, who was positioned right behind Remus, had to lean right over Remus’ back to reach a blue circle. In doing so, he had to press himself right against Remus’ arse. This resulted in a few hollers from Ros and the twins. However, neither Remus nor Sirius took it so lightly. Sirius willed himself to focus on the task at hand, and carefully placed his hand down, trying not to move his hips too much.

Meanwhile, Remus’ breath was caught in his throat. He was worried that if he moved his hand from his current red circle to a blue circle that he would not only lose his balance entirely, but would also have to shift his hips backward. Not that driving Sirius’ hips closer to his own was objectionable, but it probably wasn’t the best course of action for retaining his attention on PG-rated matters. He bit his lip and moved his hand.

Just as Remus lifted his hand off the mat, he realised that the blue circle he had had his eye on had been taken by Lily, whose red hair was hanging like a curtain in front of her face.

“Shit. Lily, you stole my circle!”

Lily laughed, “Hey, is this a competition or not?”

“Yeah, find your own circle!” said James, looking at Remus upside down from between his legs.

Remus screwed up his nose as a retort.  He then looked around for another blue circle and found one between his legs. He braced himself to press his hips against Sirius, and then slid his hand backwards.

He arched his pelvis backward, trying to get the angle right to get his hand on to the blue circle. However, with Sirius’ weight pressed right against him, it was difficult to move and balance with one hand. Just as he was about to put his hand down on the free circle, Remus felt his knees involuntarily buckle underneath him, bringing both him and Sirius to the ground in an ungraceful pile.

James and a few of those watching erupted with laughter, whilst Lily and Charity helped Sirius and Remus to their feet.

“Sorry boys, better luck next time,” Amos said with a jovial grin, “Ok! Up next - Fabian and Gideon versus Ros and - what was your name sorry? - Ros and Ludo!”

Sirius sat down on an empty couch and patted the cushion next to him. “Come on Remus. Let’s nurse our wounds together.”

Remus forced a smile, then replied, “Sure, in a minute. First, though, where’s your loo?”

“Oh, um, same as yours but swapped over, I guess. Down the hallway, across from my room if you remember which one it is?”

“Cheers,” Remus said. He then weaved his way around the Twister-watching group of people to get to the hallway and headed towards the bathroom.

Once inside the small room, he shut the door and closed the lid of the toilet seat. He sat down with a sigh and held his head in his hands. He tried to close his eyes together in an effort to shut out his feelings. He sat like this for a few minutes, grasping his hair with his hands.

Just as he started to try and re-compose himself, there was a knock on the door followed by Sirius’ voice.

“You alright mate?”

Remus sniffed, and for a moment considered putting on a good face. He sighed, and cast off that thought.

“Um, come in?”

The door knob turned and Sirius poked his head through the door.

“Hey,” he said as he slipped through the door, leaving it ajar, “What’s up?”

Sirius leant against the edge of the basin cabinet as Remus tried to put together his thoughts.

After a few moments, Remus spoke. “It’s just - it’s not that I’m embarrassed. I’m angry at-“, he sighed and gestured to his legs.

“Angry? For falling over? It’s ok, mate,” Sirius said with a slight frown.

Remus choked a laugh. “No, I’m not angry for losing Twister. I’m mad at myself. At my damn legs.” He kicked the side of the shower in frustration.

“Your legs?” Sirius asked.

“My legs, my damn balance, my whole fucking body,” Remus spat bitterly.

“Well, hey… you body can't be that bad, it’s got you this far?” Sirius replied in confusion.

Remus looked up at Sirius sharply. “Funny, Sirius.”

“Shit, I mean-“ Sirius floundered for a moment, then knelt down so he was face to face with Remus, “I have no idea what the hell you’re on about. Wanna tell me?”

Remus sighed gently and his eyes softened. “Sorry. It’s just - my legs and my balance and my fingers being numb and all of that? … It’s because I have MS.”

“MS? As in multiple sclerosis?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

Remus nodded, then looked Sirius in the eye. “You’re the first person other than my parents or Frank that I’ve told.”

Sirius’ eyebrows rose even higher on his forehead. “Wow. So you haven’t known very long then?”

“No, I was diagnosed two months ago. Really young for MS. Mostly because my parents have private health insurance I can still use, so we could get all the tests early.”

“Shit. I’m sorry, man.”

“No need to be sorry. It’s not a death sentence. I’ve got options and stuff … I’m just, well, I’m still processing it.”

“Fair enough, too,” Sirius breathed. He moved his hands from his knees to Remus’, placing them gently down in what he hoped was a comforting way.

Remus’ eyes flicked from Sirius’ hands to his eyes and he smiled. “Yeah, it’s been pretty hard on me. I get really frustrated when my body won’t let me do stuff. As you can see.” He gestured to himself to indicate his current situation.

“And I get frustrated when I can’t open jam jars,” Sirius said with a light chuckle.

Remus’ face broke into a wide grin. “You don’t know the real struggle,” he said jokingly.

Sirius laughed, and then helped Remus to his feet.

“Any better?”

Remus nodded. “Yeah, actually. You’re - you’re really good at this stuff. You know when you helped me turn my pages the other day?”

“Yeah?,” Sirius said in a soft voice.

“Yeah,” Remus whispered, suddenly aware of how close he was to Sirius. He looked down into Sirius’ eyes, captivated yet again by their peculiar and gorgeous shade of grey. He involuntarily sucked on his bottom lip, thinking about how it would feel to do the same to Sirius.

Sirius gazed back at Remus from underneath his eyelashes and smiled knowingly. He brought his hand to the side of Remus face, his fingers brushing against Remus’ ear. They both stood as if time had stopped for a moment, hesitating to make the first move.

It was then that James poked his head through the gap in the door.  “Hey, guys, you should come-“

James shifted his eyes from the party in the lounge into the bathroom. He stopped mid-sentence, his mouth forming a small ‘o’ shape in his sudden realisation of what he had interrupted.

Sirius’ head jerked towards James. His eyes went wide, and he peeped, “Sure thing. Coming.”

He let his arm fall back down to his side, and then hurriedly left without a backward glance towards Remus.

James stood in the doorway awkwardly, and he looked back at Remus. He opened his mouth to apologise, but gave up halfway through. Instead, he screwed his lips up, widened his eyes and furrowed his brow as if trying to say sorry before following Sirius down the hallway.

Remus stood with his mouth hanging open, unsure how to react to what had just happened. He brought his hand to his head again and held his forehead in consternation, fighting disappointment.

“What the hell?” he whispered to the pastel linoleum bathroom floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry about the slower update this time, they'll probably be more like this now I'm back at uni. If you ever need an update on what's going on check out the fic tag on tumblr :)
> 
> Also thanks to Kern (aflashofsilver.tumblr.com) for always helping me out when I get stuck on a sentence or word. You the best, girl.


	6. Flat C: 11:04pm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> READ ME: This is an unabashed porn chapter. If you're not into that, that's ok, there's not much plot to be found here. The normal plot will resume next chapter. 
> 
> I just really wanted to show how much Remus wants Sirius. I hope you like it!

It had been two nights since the fateful bathroom encounter at Sirius’ party. Well, 49 hours and 38 minutes, but who was counting?

Remus Lupin was, in fact, counting. He would argue that the counting wasn’t entirely conscious, but that would be a lie. For it had been 49 hours and 38 minutes since Remus had not kissed Sirius and it was driving him mad.

He had been reliving that moment over and over in his head, and three things had come to his attention. 1) He was an idiot who should do things when he had the chance,  2) Sirius Black was confusing and Remus had no idea if Sirius had even wanted to kiss him and 3) That Sirius Black was seriously hot. Confusingly, frustratingly hot.

At this particular moment, it was his third insight which Remus found himself focusing on. The image of Sirius looking up at him from under his eyelashes kept replaying over and over again in his mind, like a scratched record. Even now, as he stared up at his bedroom ceiling, all he could see in his mind’s eye was Sirius. Sirius’ eyes, his lips, his laugh, his hand stroking the side of Remus’ face-

Remus groaned and turned over to check his phone for texts for what felt like the 700th time since Friday night. Apart from a Snapchat notification from Peter of a night out with his new friends in London, there was still nothing. Remus sighed and turned his phone face side down in an attempt to stop himself from pining. However, as soon as he had turned the phone’s screen off, his mind went back to Sirius. Specifically, he was remembering how gorgeous Sirius’ lips were. It had actually been one of the first things he’s noticed about him. They were plump and almost effeminately pink, and always looked as if Sirius had freshly bitten and licked them. Remus couldn’t help but wonder if they’d look the same if he was the one biting, sucking and tasting them. He imagined his lips moving with Sirius’, his tongue parting Sirius’ lips and hearing Sirius gasp against him when he sucked on his bottom lip.

After a few minutes of letting himself become lost in the idea of kissing Sirius, and what Sirius’ moans would sound like, Remus felt himself start to get hard. He swore under his breath, and his eyes flew open to check that his curtains were shut and his door was locked. Thankfully, they were, and he let himself fall back into his thoughts.

Thoughts of kissing Sirius soon turned into Sirius kissing down his abdomen and unzipping his trousers. Remus followed suit along with his fantasy, and soon enough he was holding his cock in his hand as his thoughts spiralled away. He pictured Sirius’ beautiful lips making obscene sucking sounds as he kissed the tip of his cock. Remus swore again, rifling through the stuff on his bedside table to find his bottle of lotion. He squeezed out some into his hand, wincing slightly at the cool liquid as he smoothed it around his shaft.

He worked his cock faster, coaxing himself to a full erection as he did so. In his mind’s eye, Sirius was knelt between his legs, eagerly sucking his cock. Remus imagined running his fingers through Sirius’ dark loose curls, grasping them tight as he fucked into Sirius’ mouth. He tried to think what Sirius would sound like, moaning as he sucked him off and panting as he took a break to breathe. It was almost real, and Remus could nearly feel Sirius’ hands on his hips and his tongue on the underside of his cock.

Remus felt himself pushing towards orgasm, so he slowed his pace down to a languid stroke. The Sirius in his mind slowed as well, and began to swirl his tongue around the sensitive head of Remus’ cock. Remus bit his lip as he thought about how Sirius would tease him, his tongue moving in agonizingly slow circles and his hands grasping Remus hips tight. Sirius would look up at him from under those ridiculously long eyelashes, winking as he lazily took all of Remus into his mouth and moved one hand to softly cup his balls.

Remus held back a moan as he pictured all of this, moving his hand faster and tighter again. He had been meaning to savour the moment, but his imaginary Sirius was nearly tangible. Remus could almost hear the moans and sickly wet sounds, and could nearly feel Sirius lips around his cock and his hands fondling and roaming all over him. His thoughts started to get faster in time with his hand’s movements, cutting between Sirius’ lips and his fingers and his moans and his hair with rapid pace. By the time Remus felt himself getting towards the edge of orgasm, it was like his imagination was on a badly edited and fast-forwarded porn film.

His breath started to get raggedy, and his light gasping became intercut with moans as he got closer. Remus had never felt like this before. Even when watching good porn or when he was with his previous boyfriends, he’d never felt so in touch with his desire. Sirius was all he wanted, and he knew exactly how and where he wanted him. As he thrust into his clasped fist, he pictured Sirius’s head bobbing up and down and making wet noises as his lips sucked and licked him. Remus felt his orgasm building to a climax like all of his nerve endings were vibrating, focused on his cock. He closed his eyes even tighter and focused on the noises of Sirius sucking him off.

The final image that passed through his mind before he came was Sirius moaning as he took Remus deep in his mouth. Remus held that image in his mind as he stroked himself to finish, letting himself bask in the moment for a while. Even as he quickly cleaned up a few minutes later, a smile still lingered on his lips.

Having tired himself out, Remus fell asleep only a short while later, still thinking about Sirius’ gorgeous mouth.


	7. Flat D: 7:35 am

It was far too early in the morning. Sirius knew this without even opening his eyelids, but he did so anyway. He peered through one eye at his bedroom, and saw the early morning light streaming through a crack in his curtains. He quickly shut his eye again with a groan.

 _It can’t even be eight o’clock yet_ , Sirius thought. The clanging noises which he could hear from the kitchen confirmed this. James was clearly still home, having not left for work yet. And by the sound of it, he was attempting to make himself some coffee.

Sirius groaned and pulled himself up to a sitting position. He rubbed his face all over before opening his eyes fully. Averting his gaze from the sunlight, he grabbed his dressing gown then shuffled toward the kitchen.

“Morning, Prongs.” Sirius mumbled as he entered the kitchen, pulling on his dressing gown.

“Hey - you’re up early,” James replied without looking over at him, “I can’t - get - the fucking - coffee machine to work.”

Sirius glared at the back of James’ head. “Yeah, I heard. Want me to do it?”

James threw his hands up in defeat. “Be my guest. Fucking useless hunk of junk.”

“Hey, that’s my beautiful coffee machine you’re talking about there. She’s sensitive, be nice,” Sirius shooed James out of the way and peered into the machine. After barely looking at it for 5 seconds, he let out a bark of laughter.

“What?!” James asked.

“You forgot the filter, you useless shit. Christ.” Sirius reached up into the cupboard to grab a filter, placing it inside the machine and turning it on in one swift motion. The coffee machine started to gurgle happily.

James squinted at the machine in disgust, muttering a thank you to Sirius as he took out two mugs for their coffee. After putting the right amount of milk and sugar in their mugs, he turned to face Sirius. He was sitting at the kitchen bench with his head in his hands.

“So I take it that you still haven’t talked to Remus?” James asked in a matter-of-fact tone.

Sirius groaned and then mumbled into his hands, “I fucked everything up, Prongs.”

“You fucked up. You didn’t fuck everything up. You can still fix it, you have his number, right?”

“Yeah, but, I mean … what can I even say to him? ‘Sorry I ran away like a coward and then didn’t talk to you for like three days’?” Sirius said in exasperation.

“Something along those lines, yeah. Maybe ask him over for a drink? You gotta do something, Padfoot.” James replied. He turned and made their coffee while Sirius mulled over his reply.

“I guess so…” Sirius said as he took his mug from James, “I’ll call him later. Did you ever call Lily, by the way? You guys seemed to hit it off. I mean, she’s obviously way out of your league but-“

Sirius was interrupted by a sharp jab to his ribcage. “Ow! I mean - she seems nice and I’m sure she’d consider dating below her level of nicety to date a wanker like yourself. Better?”

James nodded curtly, then replied, “Well, funny story actually. I never got the chance to ask her for her number on Friday, so I was planning to go over and beg Frank or Remus for it. But then yesterday I was on Tinder and she was on there!”

“On Tinder? Isn’t that a hook-up app? Why do you even have Tinder?” Sirius asked.

“It’s not just for hook-ups, and I thought that since I’m new here that I might as well try to meet some new people,” James said defensively.

“Ok, alright, don’t get your knickers in a twist. So did you guys match or whatever the term is?”

“We did. Last night actually. Annnnnd we got talking and now we have a date. Tonight actually, after my work and before hers.” James beamed at Sirius, obviously very proud of this achievement.

“Well, fancy that. Gone and landed yourself a woman. A pretty and smart one, too! Should you also be buying a lottery ticket, or?”

This remark earned Sirius another jab to the ribs. “Watch it, Padfoot. That’s my future wife you’re talking about there,” Sirius snorted at this, but James ignored him and kept talking, “Anyway, I have to go to work. I’ve got a 4th form English class first period, joy of joys. I’ll see you later. Promise you’ll talk to Remus?”

Sirius nodded begrudgingly at James, who patted him on the back in support as he stood to leave. He downed the last of his coffee in one large gulp and straightened his tie before grabbing his keys and heading out the door.

Sirius waited until he heard James’ car leave the driveway before slumping down on the kitchen bench in despair. Thankfully the curtains were closed over the sliding doors, thereby shielding this moment of shame from anybody in Flat C. He’d been carefully avoiding the possibility of Remus spotting him through the window all weekend via a combination of closed curtains, spying, hiding and using James as a lookout. However, he knew that sooner or later, Remus would eventually see him.

He sighed and pulled his phone out from his dressing gown pocket. The screen told him that it was now 7:57am. Far too early to be texting or calling Remus, and yet Sirius pulled up Remus’ number from his contacts list despite this. The number seemed to glare out at him indignantly, as if it were angry that it hadn’t been called. He glared back at it, placing his phone down on the counter. He spent a few moments staring at the screen, considering what he would even say if he did call Remus later.

_Sorry I ran out on Friday. I didn’t mean to, I just didn’t expect- … Hey, how’ve you been? We should hang- … Did you get home ok on Friday, I didn’t see you after- …_

Sirius reached over his phone to grab his coffee cup and took a sip whilst mulling over the options. He glanced down at his phone as he put his mug down again, but the screen had now changed. Instead of displaying the contacts list, it now showed the call screen with the word “Dialling . . .” emblazoned across the top in large red lettering.

“Shit,” Sirius whispered to himself. He must have accidentally hit the call button with his arm whilst getting his mug. It had probably been dialling for a good few seconds now, meaning that it would have connected to Remus’ phone and it was too late to hang up without Remus knowing he’d called him.

“Shit fuck shit no nono nonono no,” Sirius muttered, picking up the phone and glaring at it in dread. His swearing and protests turned into mute panic. Finally, Sirius held the phone to his ear and waited for Remus to answer. He had no idea what he was going to say to him, but he couldn’t see any other feasible course of action that didn’t involve moving to Venezuela.

To Sirius, it seemed like an eternity before Remus answered his phone. When he did so, it was in a croaky, half-asleep voice. “Hello? Sirius?”

“Hey, sorry, did I- uh, wake you up?”

“Ah- no, no. Just a bit tired. ‘I Hate Mondays’ and all that.”

“Oh. Ok. Listen, I, uh …” Sirius trailed off, still not sure exactly what he was going to say, “- I’m going to a gig for work tonight. And I have an extra ticket, if you want to go? Sorry it’s short notice, I uh, forgot to ask you on Friday.”

There was a pause before Remus answered, “Who’s playing?”

“Uh, shit. Some local band, I think. I get the ‘meh’ assignments because I’m the new boy.”

“Really fills me with confidence for how much I’ll enjoy them, Sirius.”

Sirius chuckled nervously. “Sorry. I’ll just check.” He quickly headed to his room and woke his laptop screen up, spending a few moments finding the right email and ticket file.

“Yep… It’s a local band called Big Name On Campus. I guess they’re students?”

 “I guess so. What kind of stuff do they play?” Remus asked blearily.

“Hmmm. Indie, maybe a bit punk? They don’t look too bad, the little blurb thing says they’ve done a few local gigs before. You, um, wanna go?”

 “I should probably do my uni readings …. But sure, yeah.”

Sirius let out a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding in relief, “Great. Well, I’ll buy you a beer to make up for missed uni readings?”

“I’m not sure it works like that, but you’re on.”

Sirius smiled to himself. “Ok, the gig starts about 8, shall I come by yours a bit before and we can walk over? It’s only a short walk.”

“Sure, yeah. See you about, uh, ten to then?”

“Yep. See ya,” Sirius replied, hanging up before he could make a bigger fool of himself. He placed the phone down gingerly on his desk and stared at it in shock.

Sirius ran over the conversation again in his mind. _I forgot to apologise. I forgot to ask how he’s been. I asked him to come to work with me? What the hell is wrong with me?_

Suddenly, Sirius remembered that his work had not given him an extra ticket as per usual. He swore under his breath for the hundredth time that morning, and reached for his phone to call work and probably eventually the gig venue as well in the hopes of getting another ticket for Remus. Sirius sighed as he dialled the number for the local NME office. There had been far too much drama today already, and he wasn’t even out of his pyjamas yet. As he waited for the receptionist to pick up, he prayed that he’d find a ticket for Remus somewhere. He’d already fucked up enough already.

…

7:38 pm

Sirius had twelve minutes before he had to go pick Remus up. He had, of course, been ready for an entire hour now, and was therefore devoting his time to stressing out. He wasn’t usually an anxious person, but he’d built up the gig ( _the date? the meet up? the apology?_ ) in his head as the Be All and End All of any possible friendship or relationship with Remus. Tonight had to go well.

So, for the seventeenth time, Sirius checked his hair in the mirror and checked his wallet for the gig tickets. He’d been able to convince the receptionist Sharon to email him a new ticket, on the proviso that he give his next extra ticket to her. He just hoped that he wouldn’t need that future ticket for another apology-date with Remus down the line. The tickets were still nestling happily next to a crumpled £5 note and a few receipts. He wasn’t sure if he should make his hair more tousled or not. If James were here he would have been able to tell Sirius to “get a grip mate. Your hair could never possibly reach my level of sexily tousled anyway, you might as well concede defeat.” He ran his fingers through his hair in a half nervous/half styling-intended motion, then paced back towards the kitchen.

The kitchen clock informed him that it was now 7:41pm. To distract himself from the time, Sirius tried checking his phone for any notifications. Apart from a few likes on Sirius’ link to his most recent zine that he’d posted earlier that day, there was little to be seen on Facebook or Snapchat. Sirius didn’t let himself get sucked into checking Instagram, however, knowing that even in his nervous state that he would lose track of the time. He’d been reluctant to even get an account in the first place, but soon found that posting pictures with stupid filters of Black Dog and selfies of him and James looking ridiculous was actually really fun. He busied himself sending a dorky Snapchat to James to ask how his date was going, adding on a purple moustache for effect. He chuckled to himself as he stowed his phone in his pocket.  

Sirius spent the next 5 minutes staring into space, trying not to stare at the clock or stress about what he was going to say to Remus. He’d decided a lot earlier in the day that he was just going to try and be casual and friendly, then wing an apology later at the bar. Sirius relied far too much on his policy of “winging it”. At least, that is in anybody but James Potter’s opinion. But it had rarely resulted in complete dismal failure or Armageddon so far, so he kept doing what he was doing.

Sirius finally allowed himself to look at the time again. Finally, it was 7:49pm. He checked his pockets and his breath one last time, then headed out of his flat across the lawn.

Crossing the lawn seemed to take such an age that it felt like a terrible cliché. By the time he reached Remus’ door, he felt like he’d been walking for a year. Well, maybe a minute. _A minute can seem really long when you’re preoccupied with worrying about whether you look like the right combination of sexy and apologetic_ , Sirius reasoned.

Sirius paused in front of the front door to Flat C for just a moment before he knocked. He’d been leading up to this moment for days, so he wanted to look as composed as he could possibly be. He needn’t have bothered, however. He lost all composure only a few moments after he finally knocked, when Remus answered the door. Remus was at least twice as gorgeous as Sirius remembered. Everything about him seemed perfect, from his ever-so-slight 5 o’clock shadow to the carefully-rolled sleeves of his button down shirt. Whilst this gave the impression that Remus had meticulously planned to look incredibly sexy, Sirius knew that the truth was probably closer to the fact that Remus had likely been working on his uni stuff all day. Which, of course, made Remus even sexier to him. This particular train of thought was broken prematurely by Remus smiling at him.

“Hello.”

“Hi,” Sirius replied breathily, “Uh, how are you?”

Remus tilted his head in a kind of shrugging manner, “Alright. Hungry, actually. I forgot to eat earlier.”

“You forgot to eat?” Sirius remarked in shock.

Remus chuckled as he locked the door behind him. “It happens to me quite a bit. Have to have a chocolate bar on hand just in case I forget for a whole day. If my blood sugar drops I can get cranky.”

“Is this maybe just a cheeky way of justifying chocolate consumption?” Sirius asked.

“Possibly,” Remus said with a soft smile, “Shall we head off then? If we get there earlyish I can get some food before they start playing.”

“Yep.”

The short walk to the gig venue was held in relative silence. Whenever Sirius tried to start a conversation, he would open his mouth and find he had nothing to say. He really just wanted to ask Remus how his weekend had been. Or if he’d done a lot of work that day. Or if his legs were feeling better. Or if he’d forgive him. It was as if all his unsaid words and apologies were hanging in the air between them, but neither of them could reach out and take them. The few words that were spoken between them on the way were nondescript – a brief comment about the pedestrian crossing lights and a question concerning when the gig would finish.

Sirius hated silence. Growing up, his home was always so quiet and barren. His parents still believed that children were to be seen and not heard, yet preferably not even seen at all. Ever since he was sent to boarding school, he’d tried to create a better life for himself filled of noise and conversation and laughter. So it was very hard for him to endure silences, whether they were awkward or not.

By the time they reached the venue, Sirius had worked himself into an uncomfortable and agitated state. He felt like he was going to blurt out a horribly awkward rushed apology and ruin everything. But he couldn’t let himself do so just yet, as he still did technically have a job to do. He had to take a few notes on the band and their performance for his NME review, which was going to be incredibly difficult to do with Remus looking that like that and him feeling like he was. What he really needed was a cheesy British catchphrase to get him through, something along the lines of “Keep Calm and Carry On” or “Don’t Panic”. Preferably this phrase would be emblazoned in large, friendly letters on the cover of his review notebook, but the universe wasn’t perfect. Sirius had to soldier on. And he had a long night ahead of himself.

…

8:31 pm

It was almost exactly half an hour since Remus and Sirius had arrived at the venue. The band had not yet started playing, Remus had wolfed his way through two bowls of chips, and Sirius still felt like an awkward idiot. At least they had been talking, however. Remus had been telling Sirius all about the current essay he was writing on 18th century museum art displays. Sirius had no idea how somebody could be so passionate about wall hangings and admission prices, but he was nevertheless delighted in how Remus’ eyes sparkled as he explained the ways paintings were exhibited. Sirius himself barely spoke at all, instead letting Remus chatter on whilst he listened not-so-intently, distracted by Remus licking his lips between each new topic. Just as Remus was about to explain the beginning of the Louvre museum, he was cut off by somebody coming to the small stage’s microphone for an announcement.

“Alright! Hey everybody, welcome to Hare and Hounds on this fine Monday evening! Tonight we’re here to welcome to the stage a newcomer to the Hare, Big Name on Campus!”

There a few half-hearted friendly hollers and woots from the crowd, which quickly died down.

The announcer grinned and continued, “They’re a little bit indie, a little bit student, and a whole lot of sound, so let’s kick it off!” There was a more resounding cheer from the crowd as the band took the stage. Without faffing around with any more introduction, the drummer counted the band in and they started it off with a bang.

The first few songs that the band played were a little grungey for Sirius’ tastes, but they certainly knew how to play. The music was a little too loud for the two to keep speaking, so they comfortably settled into a rhythm of nodding along to the beat and occasionally smiling at each other. If Sirius was entirely honest, he was smiling at Remus even when he wasn’t looking back at him. Remus had a habit, it seemed, of trying to mouth along to the lyrics of songs he didn’t even know the lyrics to. And because of the kind of music the band was playing, the lyrics were barely audible in the first place, so Remus looked even more hopelessly adorable doing his pseudo-singing. Sirius couldn’t take his eyes off him, his review notebook barely touched.

After about four songs, the band started to ease into softer music, blending indie and soft rock in some more palatable songs. Sirius scribbled down a few notes in his notebook about the transition, only to be interrupted by Remus tapping him on the shoulder.

Remus leaned over to Sirius and spoke a little too loudly, “Can you dance?”

Sirius looked at Remus in confusion. _What does he mean, can I dance?_ He replied by shouting, “We did the waltz at Harrow-“

Shaking his head, Remus grinned and pointed to Sirius’ notebook. “I mean are you allowed!”

Sirius nodded in comprehension, then yelled back, “In a few songs, maybe during their encore!” Remus gave him a cheesy thumbs up in response, then returned his focus to the band on stage.

After he quickly scribbled down the rest of his notes so far, Sirius thought hard about his plan of action. _#1 Clap really hard so that the band gets an encore. #2 Dance next to Remus, trying not to look like a total idiot. #3 Buy him a beer afterwards and apologise for acting like an utter twat. #4 Hope that the universe doesn’t explode from my utter awkwardness._

Thankfully, Sirius was able to focus on his review note-taking in lieu of over-thinking his apology. He scribbled a note commenting on how whilst the transition was smooth, he found that the band needed to nail down a definite sound. It was like they’d performed three entirely different album’s materials in sequence. In fact, if the band continued their slow musical, they should almost at ballad stage, Sirius noted with a smirk. Ballads were sometimes looked down on by many in the modern music business, but he thought they still had their place. _How else were you supposed to make excuses for slow dancing these days?,_ he mused. Despite their misgivings, he liked most of what they’d played. And if his endearingly cute mock-karaoke was anything to go by, Remus did too.

Sirius estimated that the band was probably currently playing their last song, a more upbeat number. He smiled as he looked over at Remus, who had his eyes closed and was swaying in time to the beat in his chair. His eyes traced Remus’ lips as he mouthed along to the lyrics. The band’s stage lights danced over his lips, making them shine in purple and blue. However, Sirius knew that they would be that beautiful shade of rose pink underneath the lights, yearning to kissed and bitten and sucked. He sighed, wishing he could rewind to Friday evening where he had his chance. He really couldn’t mess up this time.

Finally, the band finished playing. The band members all stood and grinned as the small crowd cheered. Sirius made sure to holler extra loud, encouraging others to do the same. Remus caught on to the plan, and shouted out, meekly “Encore!”. It didn’t seem as if the band needed much encouragement, as they quickly picked their instruments back up to play again.

“Right, cheers everybody,” the lead singer murmured into the microphone, “Thanks to Hare and Hounds for hosting us tonight, and for everybody for-”

Sirius stopped paying attention to the speech to make sure he had everything organised. If they were getting up to dance, he couldn’t leave anything behind. He shoved his notebook into his jeans back pocket, and twisted his hair back into a small bun with the aid of his pencil. Other than that there were only two empty beers glasses and a long empty chips bowl on the table. He looked back up to the band for the singer’s last sentence.

“Right, so, this one’s our favourite, hope you like it.” The band then launched into playing something strongly reminiscent of Creep by Radiohead.

Remus turned to Sirius and grabbed his hand loosely to pull him onto the dance floor, joining a few other groups and couples. Sirius felt his stomach leap into his throat like a lovesick teenager at the seemingly innocent contact. He didn’t let himself linger though, letting go of his hand to dance next to Remus.

Remus seemed to dance like he sang – in a trancelike state of slightly off beat swaying. He didn’t have his eyes closed this time, though, and caught Sirius staring. He smiled softly and pulled Sirius closer so that they were dancing not quite together, but not apart. They were only about a hands width away from each other, and could feel their breath on each other’s face.

Sirius still couldn’t take his eyes off Remus, who had his eyes closed again as he was caught in the music. He opened them to meet Sirius’ gaze and raised his eyebrows in surprise. In response, he pulled Sirius closer so they were dancing nearly nose to nose so that they were almost slow dancing.  

It is important to note that neither Remus nor Sirius could actually dance. It was more a kind of swaying and bopping. But they found themselves dancing in sync, hands grazing each other’s hips and hair tentatively. There may as well have been no-one else in the room.

The song was nearing its end, the melody beginning to slow. Remus had gingerly wrapped his arms around Sirius’ neck, and Sirius found that he didn’t want this to end. He couldn’t let himself let go of Remus. He wanted to be closer to him, feel his heartbeat on his chest and his eyelashes on his cheek. Sirius acted on impulse, arching on to this toes and entwining his right hand in Remus’ hair to pull him close. He didn’t pause to think before kissing him.

It was like no kiss Sirius had ever had before. There was no urgency and no tongue, and Sirius didn’t feel pressured or ashamed. Remus’ lips were impossibly soft, and they barely pressed back against his own. As the encore song finished and the crowd around them cheered, Sirius suddenly realised what he was doing. He let go of Remus’ neck and stepped back, looking up at Remus uncertainly.

It was now quiet enough for him to speak clearly. “I’m – god, I’m sorry. That was totally not called for and really cheesy and-“

He was cut off by Remus kissing him. This time, Remus pulled Sirius close, his arms reaching down across the small of Sirius’ back. Sirius practically melted against him, letting himself get entirely lost in the moment. Remus kissed like Sirius was his last breath on earth, savouring him and pulling him close. Their lips fit together like they had been made for each other, even when Remus smiled into the kiss. After only a few short moments, Remus pulled back and rested his forehead against Sirius’.

“It think what you meant to say was ‘I’m sorry I didn’t do that sooner’,” he said softly.

“Yeah,” Sirius breathed.

“You’re an idiot,” Remus replied before kissing him again, firmer and quickly this time. “Let’s go home.”

Sirius nodded, looking up at Remus in disbelief. He didn’t quite understand what had just happened. Remus linked their hands together and led him out of the venue. They didn’t let their hands go until they reached Sirius’ front door.

…

The walk home was almost silent again, except for Remus softly whistling the tune of the last song. Sirius merely smiled, watching him in awe. He didn’t know that anyone on earth could ever be this amazing. He just hoped that this all wasn’t a dream.

When it finally came time to say goodnight, Sirius didn’t want to let go of Remus hand. He wanted to relive the song ending again and again, feeling Remus’ lips on his own for an eternity. He let his hand linger for a few moments too long before letting go.

They stood in front of Sirius’ door in silence, neither of them wanting to say goodnight first. Sirius was the first to finally speak.

“Do you want to, uh, have a coffee? Come inside?” he said in the most innocent tone that he could manage. He gestured inside in encouragement.

Remus breathed a slight chuckle and shook his head softly. “Goodnight Sirius,” he replied with a smile, before pulling him close again. He kissed him one last time, chaste but slow. Remus didn’t look back to Sirius as he paced over to his own flat and let himself in.

Sirius sighed and leant back against his front door. He was truly and completely fucked, and he didn’t even care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a long time waiting, and I hope that it was worth it. Much love to Darcy and Keryn for sticking with me and encouraging me to write! I can't promise more regular updates but I still have no plans to abandon this fic xx


	8. Flat C: 12:35 pm

For the entire morning, Remus had been relatively successful in not thinking about Last Night. He had employed a few different methods for this tactic to work: 1) He had left home that morning to do work at university in order to not look over at Sirius’ flat 2) He had left his laptop and cell phone at home so he wouldn’t be tempted to contact Sirius 3) He had taken a lot of distracting readings and assignment materials to university so he would have something to think about other than Sirius.

These methods had only been successful insofar as he wasn’t thinking as much about Last Night as he was about what Sirius was doing right now. Or what he was thinking. Or how he looked. Or what he would say to Remus if he could only fucking text him.

 _Seriously, who the hell leaves their phone at home nowadays? What if there was an emergency? What if Frank got locked out of the flat? **What if Mum called and I didn’t answer?** _ Remus thought to himself as he boarded the bus back to the flat. He’d given up staring at his readings after three hours of nonsensical highlighting and scribbled note-taking, and had convinced himself he’d get more work done in the comfort of his flat with a cup of tea in hand. It definitely, absolutely, positively had nothing to do with the fact that he would then be closer to Sirius. At least, that’s what he told himself.

The bus ride back home was filled with more thoughts of Sirius. He’d mostly managed to convince himself that Last Night was not in fact a dream, and in all likelihood, Sirius did actually like him. So all he had to be anxious about now was if Sirius was sincere about liking him and wanting something more than a quick fuck, and the infinite ways in which Remus could fuck it all up. So, basically everything.

Remus was still attempting to keep up the ruse of not thinking about Last Night when he walked down the drive to his flat, refusing to even look over at Flat D. At this point, his obsession over attempting not to overthink something may have actually gone too far and become its own form of overthinking. As he entered his flat, he tried to divert his attention toward making a cup of tea, dropping his pile of neglected university work on the kitchen counter.

Once he’d brewed the perfect cup of tea (very milky, yet also very hot) Remus settled down to catching up on what Facebook and other happenings he’d missed out on during his brief bout of internet absence that morning. He’d just taken his last sip of tea whilst reading a Facebook status update from Peter on his new life in London when there was a knock at the door. He placed his laptop on the coffee table in front of him and went to see who it was.

It really shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise that Sirius was standing on the other side of the door when he opened it. Nonetheless, Remus was speechless.

Sirius smiled softly at Remus’ silence, and asked, “Would you believe me if I said I was here for a cup of sugar?”

After a brief pause, Remus answered “No,” only just above a whisper.

“Good,” Sirius replied, cupping his hand behind Remus’ head and pulling him in for a kiss that was far too risqué and lingering for any front doorway. Before they inadvertently gave an elderly neighbour a heart attack, Remus broke the kiss and wordlessly pulled Sirius inside, slamming the door behind them.

Sirius opened his mouth to speak but was quickly broken off by Remus kissing him. He melted into the kiss, linking his hands behind Remus’ neck as Remus pressed him against the wall next to the front door.

The keys hanging on hooks above Sirius’ head jangled slightly as they kissed, and Remus chuckled under his breath. Sirius pulled Remus back to him, catching his bottom lip and sucking. This earnt an involuntary moan from Remus, followed by more and more fervid kissing.

Remus had just moved to kiss Sirius’ neck when he was interrupted by a soft cough. He turned to see where it came from, and saw Frank standing in the hallway blushing.

“Sorry – I just need my keys and - the door,” Frank gestured to the keys dangling over Sirius’ head and the minimal space between them and the front door.

Both Remus and Sirius blushed twice as hard as Frank and shuffled away from the door, muttering “Sorry,” as Frank quickly grabbed his keys and slipped out of the flat.

Remus grinned cheekily at Sirius and chuckled lightly, “Where were we?”

“About … here,” Sirius said, pulling Remus by the hand into his bedroom and shutting the door behind them in one move. He placed Remus’ hand on his lower back and leant up to kiss him chastely.

“I hope you weren’t planning on doing anything this afternoon,” he whispered to Remus, their lips nearly touching.

“I wouldn’t dream of it”

…

 

Remus had lost track of time. How long had he been kissing Sirius for? It felt like an eternity. They had somehow ended up on the bed, which Remus blamed entirely on Sirius. Sirius was currently straddling his hips and kissing his neck and it felt like fucking heaven. His hair hung like a curtain around their faces, and he held one of Remus’ hands above his head whilst the other was placed firmly on Sirius’ arse.

He had been jolted back into semi-conscious thought because Sirius was getting dangerously close to undoing his shirt buttons. It wasn’t that Remus didn’t want what would happen if the buttons were undone to happen – he really did. But he also wanted this to be more than a quick fuck. He wanted to savour Sirius and keep him for himself. He wanted to kiss him and to hold his hand and to have awkward dates and adorable breakfasts and parental introductions and the whole nine yards.

Remus shifted his hand away from Sirius’ arse to stroke his jaw. Sirius stopped sucking his collarbone and hummed, “Hmm?”

“Can we – take a breather?” Remus asked, breathing heavily.

“Oh – sure,” Sirius said. He shifted himself next to Remus and attempted to pull his hair back into a tiny ponytail.

Remus cleared his throat, trying to think of something to say in the silence.

“Uh, so … how’s the review going? For last night’s gig?”

Sirius sighed and flopped his head down on to Remus’ shoulder. “As good as can be expected, considering I was distracted all morning -”

Remus smiled to himself as Sirius continued, “I’ve got a good bit written on the encore though.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I’ve said it was very good for kissing cute neighbours to,” Sirius explained.

“A wee bit specific don’t you think?”

 “Maybe. I’ll see what the editors think,” Sirius chuckled. “What about you? How goes the university work?”

“As good as can be expected, considering I was distracted all morning,” Remus said with a smirk. He felt Sirius smile into his shoulder.

After a few moments of quiet, Sirius shuffled around until his head was in Remus’ lap.

“Do you wanna go do something?” he asked Remus.

“What kind of something?”

“A date something. A now something … A coffee something?”

Remus beamed down at Sirius, “All of the above?”

“Perfect.”

Within a few minutes, they had gathered themselves together – checking their hair, straightening their shirts, finding Sirius’ jersey on the floor – and left the flat together.

Sirius linked his hand with Remus’ as they headed towards the nearest café.

“So … that line about borrowing sugar was smooth. What was that about?“ Remus said with a smirk.

“I was merely being neighbourly,” Sirius explained in a mock-serious tone.

“Oh really? You wanna be this ‘neighbourly’ with Phyllis in Flat F?” Remus asked, his eyebrows raised.

“I’m shocked at the suggestion! Phyllis is married, you home wrecker!”

Remus snorted. “What Leonard doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Sirius gasped mockingly, then leant against Remus so he was forced to move his arm around Sirius’ shoulder. Remus obliged, then leant down to kiss Sirius briefly without halting his stride. This didn’t go exactly as planned, however, as Sirius swept him into a full embrace in the middle of the footpath.

When he came up for air, Remus muttered, “We’ve got to stop doing this.”

Sirius shook his head, his forehead rubbing against Remus’.

“Never.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the hiatus guys :) Again, still not promising more regular updates but I hoped you liked this one!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, thanks for reading :) Please leave comments and suggestions, I love input into my works. If anyone is a keen beta-reader, flick me a message.
> 
> My tumblr is eccentricaoferoticonsix.tumblr.com, and the tag for this work is 'marauders flatting au' (which features face claims and relevant posts etc)


End file.
